Return to home1471 May 4,
The Yorkists defeated the Lancastrians in the Battle of Tewkesbury
between the English House of Lancaster and House of York. King
Edward IV routed the forces of ex-queen Margaret. The Lancastrian
forces were led by Edmund Beaufort, 4th Duke of Somerset. Edward,
the 17-year-old prince of Wales, was killed at the battle of
Tewkesbury.
(www.britainexpress.com/History/battles/tewkesbury.htm)(MH,
12/96)(HN, 5/4/99)

1493 May 3-4, Pope Alexander VI
issued 3 papal bulls that divided the discoveries of Columbus
between Spain and Portugal. By the Bulls of May 3 and 4 he drew an
imaginary line one hundred leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands.
The May 4 Bull, “Inter Caetera," was amended in Sep. granting Spain
the right to hold lands to the “western regions and to India."
(DAH, 1946, p.2)(www.kwabs.com/bull_of_1493.html)

1626 May 4, Dutch explorer
Peter Minuit (~1594-1638), director-general of New Netherlands,
bought Manhattan Island for 60 guilders (about $24 in 1839 dollars)
worth of cloth and buttons. Minuit conducted the transaction with
Seyseys, chief of the Canarsees, who were only too happy to accept
valuable merchandise in exchange for an island that was actually
mostly controlled by the Weckquaesgeeks. The Sixty guilders were
valued at approximately $1,060 in 2013. The site of the deal was
later marked by Peter Minuit Plaza at South Street and Whitehall
Street.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Minuit)(AP,
5/4/97)(HN, 5/4/98)(WSJ, 11/19/99, p.W10)

1631 May 4, Mary I Henriette
Stuart, daughter of Charles I (later queen of England), was born.
(MC, 5/4/02)

1715 May 4, A French
manufacturer debuted the first folding umbrella.
(HN, 5/4/98)

1796 May 4, Horace Mann, "the
father of American Public Education" educator and author, was born.
(HN, 5/4/99)

1814 May 4, Napoleon Bonaparte
disembarked at Portoferraio on the island of Elba in the
Mediterranean.
(HN, 5/4/99)
1814 May 4, Bourbon reign was
restored in France. Louis XVIII was crowned as successor to his
guillotined brother.
(MC, 5/4/02)

1820 May 4, Joseph Whitaker,
bookseller and publisher, was born. He founded Whitaker's Almanac.
(HN, 5/4/99)

1825 May 4, Thomas Henry Huxley
(d.1895), British biologist, naturalist and author, was born. "God
give me strength to face a fact though it slay me." "My experience
of the world is that things left to themselves don't get right." His
work includes the collected Essays in nine volumes: 1. Method and
Results, 2. Darwiniana, 3. Science and Education, 4. Science and the
Hebrew Tradition, 5. Science and the Christian Tradition, 6. Hume,
with Helps to the Study of Berkeley, 7. Man’s Place in Nature, 8.
Discourses, Biological and Geological, 9. Evolution and Ethics and
Other Essays. In 1997 Adrian Desmond wrote the biography: “Huxley."
“God give me strength to face a fact though it slay me."
(OAPOC-TH, p.71)(WSJ, 10/10/97, p.A20)(AP,
11/1/97)(AP, 1/26/99)(HN, 5/4/01)

1827 May 4, John Hanning Speke,
English explorer, was born. He discovered Lake Victoria and the
source of the Nile.
(HN, 5/4/99)

1846 May 4, Michigan ended its
death penalty.
(MC, 5/4/02)

1851 May 4, The Sydney Ducks
set fire to a store on San Francisco’s Portsmouth Square. Most of
the dwellings on Telegraph Hill were destroyed. The heart SF was
destroyed and some 2000 buildings burned down. This led to the
formation of the secret Committee of Vigilance, which hung several
criminals and drove others out of the city. Remnants from Hoff's
store, built on a wharf over the bay, were found in 1986 during
excavations for the Embarcadero West 33-story high-rise.
(SFC, 12/24/99, p.A24)(SFC, 11/27/00, p.A18)
1851 May 4, The 1840-ship
General Harrison burned to the water line. It was salvaged for
parts, buried and not seen again until 2001 when construction at
Battery and Clay revealed its remains. The whaling ship Niantic,
already converted to a waterfront hotel, burned and sank into the
bay. In 1977 new construction uncovered the Niantic’s burned
remains.
(SFC, 9/8/01, p.A11)(SFC, 2/4/05, p.E16)

1858 May 4, In the Mexican War
of Reform liberals established their capital at Vera Cruz.
(MC, 5/4/02)

1862 May 4, Battle at
Williamsburg, Virginia. [see May 5]
(MC, 5/4/02)
1862 May 4, At Yorktown, VA.,
McClellan halted his troop before town as it was full of armed land
mines left by CS Brig. general Gabrial Rains.
(MC, 5/4/02)

1863 May 4, Battle of
Chancellorsville ended when the Union Army retreated.
(HN, 5/4/98)
1863 May 4, War correspondents
Richard T. Colburn, Junius H. Brown and Albert Dean Richardson were
captured enroute to Grant’s headquarters by a Confederate patrol
near Vicksburg, Miss. Colburn was soon released but Brown and
Richardson were sent to Libby Prison in Richmond, Va., and later to
Salisbury Prison in North Carolina. They managed to escape in Dec
1864 and arrived in Knoxville, Tenn., on Jan 13, 1865.
(ON, 4/03, p.12)

1864 May 4, Ulysses S. Grant
crossed Rapidan and began his duel with Robert E. Lee’s Confederate
army.
(HN, 5/4/98)

1884 May 4, Agnes Fay Morgan,
American nutritionist and biochemist, was born.
(HN, 5/4/01)
1884 May 4, Ferdinand Ward came
by the NYC home of Pres. Ulysses S. Grant and told him that the
Marine National Bank was having temporary difficulties because of a
large unexpected withdrawal by one of its clients. He asked Grant if
he could come up with $150,000 for only 24 hours and by Monday or
Tuesday the situation would be all cleared up. Grant, that same day,
limped from his home and went to see his friend William Henry
Vanderbilt. He asked Vanderbilt to lend him $150,000, telling him
the same story Ward had fabricated. Vanderbilt told Grant he did not
care one bit about the Marine National Bank, but that he would be
pleased to make a personal loan to Grant for the amount requested.
(http://faculty.css.edu/mkelsey/usgrant/lastyears.html)

1886 May 4,
At Haymarket Square in Chicago, a labor demonstration for an 8-hour
workday turned into a riot when a bomb exploded. Seven policemen
were killed and some 60 others injured. Only one policeman was
killed in the strike. 3 labor leaders were executed Nov 10, 1887,
for the bombing. The Haymarket affair is generally considered to
have been an important influence on the origin of international May
Day observances for workers.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haymarket_Riot)(AP,
5/4/97)(WSJ, 2/6/98, p.A20)

1904 May 4, The United States
took over construction of the Panama Canal.
(AP, 5/4/08)

1910 May 4, Tel Aviv was
founded.
(MC, 5/4/02)

1911 May 4, In San Francisco
Police chief Seymour instructed Capt. Thomas Duke of Central Station
to notify the proprietors of brothels that $2 per day would be the
maximum they would be allowed to charge the 100 prostitutes at 633
Jackson and 719 Commercial Street. Current charges for the women
were $5 per day.
(SSFC, 5/1/11, DB p.46)

1912 May 4, More than ten
thousand women and about a thousand men marched down Fifth Avenue in
NYC to support woman's suffrage.
(NYT, 5/5/1912, p1)

1916 May 4,
Responding to a demand from Pres. Wilson, Germany agreed to limit
its submarine warfare, averting a diplomatic break with Washington.
However, Germany resumed unrestricted submarine warfare the
following year.
(AP, 5/4/07)

1919 May 4, Some 3,000 young
scholars from 13 colleges and universities rallied at Tiananmen
Square to protest the loss of Shandong province to the Japanese
under the Versailles Treaty at the Paris Peace Conference. German
concessions in China were bequeathed to Japan. Among the protestors
were people who helped form the Communist Party.
(SFC, 6/25/98, p.A8)(WSJ, 5/17/99, p.A21)(Econ,
5/3/08, p.13)

1923 May 4, In Vienna, Austria,
bloody street battles took place between Nazis, socialists and
police.
(MC, 5/4/02)

1924 May 4, The summer Olympics
opened in Paris. The French rugby team beat the Rumanians 61-3.
(Ind, 2/16/02,
6A)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1924_Summer_Olympics)
1924 May 4, Fascists and
communists gained power in the German Republic elections.
(MC, 5/4/02)

1927 May 4,
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was incorporated.
[see May 11] Louis B. Mayer, Mayer and three of his guests – actor
Conrad Nagel, director Fred Niblo and producer Fred Beetson, had
initiated discussions for the organization earlier in the year.
(http://www.oscars.org/academy/history-organization/history.html)(AP,
5/4/97)
1927 May 4, The first balloon
flight over 40,000 feet was made.
(HN, 5/4/98)

1928 May 4, Maynard Ferguson,
jazz trumpeter (Roulette), was born in Verdun, Quebec.
(MC, 5/4/02)
1928 May 4, Hosni Mubarak,
Egyptian president (1981-2011), was born in the village of Kafr
el-Moseilha in the Nile delta province of Menoufia.
(AP, 7/9/04)(SFC, 2/12/11, p.A4)
1928 May 4, Hennie Youngman,
comedian, married Sadie Cohen. They met in a Kresge’s 5 & 10
cent store in Brooklyn where they both worked. He later made famous
the line: “Take my wife... Please!"
(SFEM, 1/25/98, p.66)

1929 May 4, Audrey Hepburn
(Edda van Heemstra Hepburn-Rusten), Belgian-born actress, was born.
She won an Oscar for her role Roman Holiday and later became a
Special Ambassador for UNICEF.
(HN, 5/4/99)

1930 May 4, Roberta Peters,
operatic soprano (NY Met), was born in NYC.
(MC, 5/4/02)
1930 May 4, In India Mahatma
Gandhi was arrested by the British.
(HN, 5/4/98)

1932 May 4, Mobster Al Capone,
convicted of income-tax evasion, entered the federal penitentiary in
Atlanta. Capone was later transferred to Alcatraz Island in San
Francisco Bay.
(AP, 5/4/08)

1938 May 4, Carl Von Ossietzky
(b.1889), German pacifist, anti-fascist writer and 1935 Nobel Peace
Prize winner, succumbed to tuberculosis and from the after-effects
of the abuse he suffered in the concentration camps.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_von_Ossietzky)(Econ 7/15/17,
p.38)

1942 May 4, The U.S. began food
rationing.
(HN, 5/4/98)
1942 May 4,
The Battle of the Coral Sea, the first naval clash fought entirely
with carrier aircraft, began during World War II.
(AP, 5/4/97)(HN, 5/4/98)

1945 May 4, John F. Kennedy,
correspondent for the Hearst Newspapers, filed a dispatch on the
founding of the UN in San Francisco in which he said: Any
organization drawn up here will be merely a skeleton. Its powers
will be limited… The hope is however, that this skeleton will put on
flesh as time goes by.
(SSFC, 6/26/05, p.F6)
1945 May 4, German forces in
the Netherlands, Denmark and northwest Germany agreed to surrender.
(AP, 5/4/00)

1946 May 4, A
two-day riot at Alcatraz prison in San Francisco Bay ended after
five people were killed.
(AP, 5/4/97)

1957 May 4, It was reported
that NATO has warned the Soviet Union that it would meet any attack
with all available meads including nuclear weapons.
(SFC, 5/4/09, p.B2)
1957 May 4, The Anne Frank
Foundation formed in Amsterdam.
(MC, 5/4/02)

1959 May 4, Randy Travis,
country singer (Diggin' Up Bones), was born in Marshville, NC.
(MC, 5/4/02)
1959 May 4, Pulitzer prize was
awarded to Archibald Macleish (again) for his poetic drama, JB based
on the Book of Job.
(MC, 5/4/02)

1961 May 4, A
group of 13 CORE civil rights activists, dubbed "Freedom Riders"
left Washington, D.C., for New Orleans to challenge racial
segregation on buses and in bus terminals.
(AP, 5/4/97)(HN, 5/4/98)(MC, 5/4/02)

1970 May 4,
At Kent State Univ. on Monday, a peaceful noontime rally was ordered
to disburse by guardsmen. At 12:20 p.m., a small group of Guardsmen
suddenly wheeled and fired into a group of protesters, killing four
and wounding 9-11 others. One wounded student was crippled for life
with damage to his spinal column. In the days that followed,
hundreds of colleges were shut down by student strikes and more than
100,000 demonstrators marched on Washington, D.C. Twenty-five years
after the event the National Guard insisted that it was provoked
into attacking the students contrary to eye-witnesses, photographs,
and later investigations. Renowned American sculptor George Segal's
bronze Abraham and Isaac was commissioned to commemorate the killing
of four Vietnam War protesters at Ohio's Kent State University. The
finished bronze is now part of Princeton University's modern
sculpture garden.
(NPR interview with the crippled survivor
5/4/95)(HFA, '96, p.30)(AP, 5/4/97)(HN, 5/4/98)(HNQ, 8/24/98) (HNPD,
5/4/99)
1970 May 4, The US FCC adopted
the prime time access rule (PTAR), to be fully effective as of
October 1, 1971. Four months after its adoption, however, the
Commission on August 7, 1970, significantly amended the rule,
delaying until October 1, 1972, the effective date of the
off-network and feature films provisions.
(http://tinyurl.com/5lefgv)
1970 May 4, A dispatch filed
from Saigon described looting by US soldiers at the Cambodian town
of Snuol. The mention of looting was removed by an editor in New
York before the story was transmitted to newspapers in the United
States. An AP story was killed by Wes Gallagher (d.1997 at 86),
general manager of the new service.
(AP, 7/11/07)(SFC, 10/12/97, p.B5)

1972 May 4, The remains of the
ship Gjoe, a converted herring boat used by Roald Amundsen to cross
the Northwest Passage (1903-1905), departed San Francisco for Oslo,
Norway. A commemorative sculpture was left next to the Beach Chalet
at Ocean Beach.
(SFC, 4/17/00, p.D8)(WSJ, 4/18/00, p.A16)(Ind,
4/27/02, 5A)

1976 May 4, Australian PM
Malcolm Fraser announced that "Waltzing Matilda" would serve as his
country's national anthem at the upcoming Olympic Games.
(AP, 5/4/06)

1977 May 4, A large tornado
swept through Pleasant Hill, Mo., hitting the city’s high school and
grade school. Only minor injuries occurred due to superb tornado
warnings and drills.
(SFC, 5/4/09, p.D8)

1978 May 4, The Hispanic ethnic
group was created when the US Office of Management and Budget
published the following regulation in the Federal Register:
"Directive 15: Race and Ethnic Standards for Federal Statistics and
Administrative Reporting" that defined a Hispanic to be "a person of
Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Central or South American, or other
Spanish culture … In 1981 a US federal law stated that Spaniards are
part of the Hispanic group.
(http://family.jrank.org/pages/778/Hispanic-American-Families.html#ixzz0wE9Irnns)
1978 May 4, The South African
Air Force (SAAF) engaged in air to ground combat at the Battle of
Cassinga in Angola.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_African_Border_War)

1979 May 4, Margaret Thatcher
(b.1925), leader of the Conservative Party, was sworn in as
Britain's first female prime minister. She continued in office for 3
terms until 1990.
(www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/thatcher_margaret.shtml)

1980 May 4,
Marshal Josip Broz Tito (b.1892), Communist dictator of Yugoslavia
(1943-1980), died three days before his 88th birthday. He was a
Croat and tried to spread the Serbs out over the six Yugoslav
republics so that they would not dominate the country. His policy
was considered a major cause of the Bosnian war in the '90s.
(AP,
5/4/97)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josip_Broz_Tito)(WSJ, 8/8/95,
p. A-10)(WSJ, 6/11/96, p.A14)
1980 May 4, Nine people were
killed at Kinshasa, Zaire (later the Democratic Republic of Congo)
during a stampede to attend mass given by Pope John Paul II.
(http://africanhistory.about.com/od/may/a/td0504.htm)

1982 May 4, The British
destroyer HMS Sheffield was hit by Exocet rocket off the Falkland
Islands. 20 men died and a further 24 were injured in the sinking of
the Sheffield, the first British warship to be lost in 37 years.
(http://tinyurl.com/htt3d)

1987 May 4,
Pope John Paul II ended his five-day visit to West Germany with a
call for religious freedom in the Soviet bloc and praise for those
who had opposed the "mass hysteria and propaganda" of the Nazi era.
(AP, 5/4/97)

1988 May 4, As a year-long
amnesty program for certain illegal aliens in the United States came
to a close, thousands of applicants lined up nationwide on the last
day.
(AP, 5/4/98)
1988 May 4, A spectacular
explosion occurred at the Shell oil refinery in Norco, La., on the
Mississippi river just north of New Orleans. 8 people were killed
and over 40 injured.
(http://www.shellfacts.com/Chatterjee_review.html)
1988 May 4, Three French
hostages were released in Beirut by pro-Iranian kidnappers.
(AP, 5/4/98)

1989 May 4, Fired White House
aide Oliver North was convicted of shredding documents and two other
crimes and acquitted of nine other charges stemming from the
Iran-Contra affair. The 3 convictions were later overturned on
appeal.
(AP, 5/4/99)
1989 May 4, The US launched its
Magellan spacecraft to Venus.
{USA, NASA, Venus, Space}
(www.solarviews.com/eng/magellan.htm)

1990 May 4, Latvia's parliament
voted 138-0 (1 abstention) for Independence. The Russophone
Ravnopraviye (Equal Rights Movement) boycotted this resolution by
walking out of parliament.
(http://countrystudies.us/latvia/20.htm)
1990 May 4, The South African
government and the African National Congress concluded historic
talks in Cape Town with a joint statement agreeing on a "common
commitment toward the resolution of the existing climate of
violence."
(AP, 5/4/00)

1991 May 4, “Strike the Gold"
won the 117th Kentucky Derby.
(AP, 5/4/01)
1991 May 4, President Bush
suffered shortness of breath while jogging at Camp David; he was
rushed to Bethesda Naval Hospital, where doctors found he was
experiencing an irregular heartbeat.
(AP, 5/4/01)
1991 May 4, Morris K. Udall
(d.1998), (Rep-D-Ariz), resigned due to Parkinson's disease.
(http://dizzy.library.arizona.edu/branches/spc/udall/mobio.html)

1992 May 4,
Democratic presidential candidate Bill Clinton toured riot-ravaged
Los Angeles streets, blaming the destruction on what he called 12
years of Republican neglect.
(AP, 5/4/97)
1992 May 4, India and Russia
sign a five-year agreement on trade and economic cooperation.
(www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story.aspx?id=NEWEN20080048779)

1993 May 4, The United States
handed over control of the relief effort in Somalia to the United
Nations.
(AP, 5/4/98)

1994 May 4, India made its 4th
developmental launch of ASLV. The 113 kg Stretched Rohini Satellite
Series (SROSS-C2) was launched by fourth developmental flight of
ASLV-D4 from Sriharikota.
(www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story.aspx?id=NEWEN20080048779)
1994 May 4,
Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO leader Yasser Arafat
signed a historic accord on Palestinian autonomy that granted
self-rule in the Gaza Strip and Jericho.
(AP, 5/4/97)

1995 May 4, India launched the
fourth ASLV-D4 from Sriharikota, successfully placing the SROSS-C2
satellite in orbit.
(www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story.aspx?id=NEWEN20080048779)
1995 May 4, An Iranian nuclear
official said spent fuel from Iran's Russian-made reactors,
potential raw material for nuclear bombs, would be returned to
Russia for safeguarding.
(AP, 5/4/00)

1996 May 4, Grindstone won the
Kentucky Derby, giving trainer D. Wayne Lukas a sixth straight
victory in a Triple Crown race. Grindstone was injured ahead of the
Preakness and retired.
(AP, 5/4/97)(SFC, 5/4/09, p.D6)
1996 May 4,
Nigerian and Cameroon forces clashed over the Bakassi region on the
fishing and oil-rich Gulf of Guinea.
(SFC, 5/7/96, p.A-10)
1996 May 4, A
Sudanese passenger plane crashed and killed all 53 onboard. The
plane was a Russian Antonov-24 and had tried to land outside of
Khartoum in an area cleared for a new airport because sand covered
the runways at Khartoum.
(SFC, 5/5/96, p.A-14)

1997 May 4, IBM's Deep Blue
computer defeated world chess champion Garry Kasparov, evening their
six-game series at one game apiece.
(AP, 5/4/98)
1997 May 4, Pope John Paul
beatified the first Gypsy Jimenez Malla, killed by Republican forces
in the 1936 Spanish Civil War. Also beatified were Florentino
Asensio Barroso, bishop of Barbastro, Spain, where Malla died;
Enrico Rebuschini, a northern Italian priest who died in 1938; and
Maria Encarnacion Rosal, a 19th century Guatemalan nun.
(SFC, 5/5/97, p.A8)(AP, 5/4/98)

1998 May 4, The FDA approved
the first commercial surgical glue, Tisseel, made by Baxter Labs.
(USAT, 5/4/98, p.10D)
1998 May 4, Unabomber Theodore
Kaczynski was given four life sentences plus 30 years by a federal
judge in Sacramento, Calif., under a plea agreement that spared him
the death penalty.
(AP, 5/4/99)
1998 May 4, The Clinton
administration invoked sanctions against North Korea and Pakistan
for a secret 1997 missile deal. Pakistan’s military named the
acquired missile, Ghauri, after a famous Muslim warrior who slew a
Hindu emperor named Prithvi, the name of a Russian made Indian
missile.
(SFC, 5/14/98, p.A16)
1998 May 4, In Columbia gunmen
killed 21 people in the province of Meta. Some 200 members of a
right-wing paramilitary unit laid siege to the village of Puerta
Alvira for 3 hours.
(WSJ, 5/6/98, p.A1)
1998 May 4, The IMF resumed
lending to Indonesia with the release of almost $1 billion.
(USAT, 5/5/98, p.1B)
1998 May 4, In Vatican City
Alois Estermann (43), the pope’s top bodyguard, was shot and killed
along with his wife, Gladys Meza Romero (49) in their apartment by
Cedrich Tornay (23), who then shot himself. Estermann had just been
appointed the head of the Swiss Guards and was killed by Tornay due
to damaged professional pride. An investigation was concluded in
1999 and suggested that marijuana and a brain cyst impaired Tornay.
(WSJ, 5/5/98, p.A1)(USAT, 5/6/98, p.6A)(SFC,
2/9/99, p.A10)(AP, 5/4/99)
1998 May 4, From Zimbabwe it
was reported that the United Merchant Bank of tycoon Roger Boka was
shut down when a government audit found it incapable of paying its
debts.
(WSJ, 5/4/98, p.A17)

1999 May 4, Pres. Clinton
authorized a Congressional Gold Medal for Rosa Parks.
(SFC, 5/5/99, p.A3)
1999 May 4, Five New York
police officers went on trial for the torture of Haitian immigrant
Abner Louima. One officer later pleaded guilty; a second was
eventually convicted of perjury; the remaining three were acquitted
of brutality charges. Two of those three were later convicted of
conspiring to obstruct justice; those convictions were overturned.
(AP, 5/4/04)
1999 May 4, Martin Frankel flew
to Rome on a chartered jet from White Plains N.Y. with two women,
Mona Kim and Jackie Ju. It was later learned that he was responsible
for over 200 million in missing insurance funds. [see May 5]
(WSJ, 7/16/99, p.A1)
1999 May 4, Goldman Sachs began
trading on the NYSE as a publicly owned company. Its prospectus
began: “Our clients interests always come first."
(http://marketplace.publicradio.org/shows/1999/05/04_mpp.html)(Econ,
4/24/10, p.13)
1999 May 4, Tornadoes roared
across the Plains for a second straight day.
(AP, 5/4/00)
1999 May 4, Manuel Babbitt
(50), a Vietnam veteran, was executed at San Quentin, Ca., the day
after his birthday, for the 1980 murder of an elderly grandmother in
Sacramento. He refused his last meal and asked that the $50 allotted
be given to homeless Vietnam vets. Babbitt was buried May 10 in
Wareham, Mass., with full military honors
(SFC, 5/4/99, p.A1,7)(SFC, 5/11/99, p.A4)
1999 May 4, In Lebanon a
roadside bomb killed 2 Israeli-backed militiamen. Hezbollah claimed
responsibility.
(WSJ, 5/5/99, p.A1)
1999 May 4, Yasser Arafat
promised in 1997 to declare statehood, unilaterally if necessary.
The five year interim period of Palestinian autonomy was to end. The
declaration was deferred on April 28.
(WSJ, 11/14/97, p.A1)(SFC, 5/20/98, p.A12)(SFC,
5/4/99, p.A11,14)
1999 May 4, Allied forces
bombed fixed and mobile targets and downed a Yugoslav MigG-29. The
US considered freeing 2 prisoners of war and another 5,000 refugees
crossed into Albania.
(SFC, 5/5/99, p.A12)
1999 May 4, Work crews
struggled to restore electricity across Serbia after NATO strikes on
major power grids left Belgrade and other cities in the dark.
(AP, 5/4/00)

2000 May 4, The e-mail virus
“ILOVEYOU" bug hit millions of computers around the world. It was
considered the most virulent, most damaging ($2.6 bil), most costly
and most rapidly spread virus to date. In Manila Onel de
Guzman, a former computing student, was later released with all
charges dismissed due to lack of evidence.
(SFC, 5/5/00, p.A1)(SFC, 5/6/00, p.A1)(SFC,
8/22/00, p.A11)
2000 May 4, In London Ken
Livingston (54), a socialist member of parliament, was elected
mayor.
(SFC, 5/5/00, p.A14)(AP, 5/4/01)
2000 May 4, Congo agreed to
cooperate with UN plans for a 5,500 member observer force to monitor
the cease-fire.
(SFC, 5/5/00, p.A18)
2000 May 4, In Indonesia the
government announced an agreement for a cease-fire with separatists
in Aceh province.
(SFC, 5/5/00, p.A18)
2000 May 4, In Indonesia a 6.5
earthquake was centered in the Maluku Sea off Pelang Island and at
least 17 people were killed.
(SFC, 5/5/00, p.A18)
2000 May 4, It was reported
that Israel planned to deploy a laser shield named THEL, Tactical
High Energy Laser (TRW Inc.), to shoot down rockets fired by
guerrillas following its withdrawal from southern Lebanon.
(SFC, 5/4/00, p.A16)
2000 May 4, Lebanese guerrillas
fired some 20 Katyusha rockets into Kiryat Shemona, a town in
northern Israel. One Israeli soldier was killed and over 24 people
were injured. Israel retaliated with heavy air strikes.
(SFC, 5/5/00, p.A14)(WSJ, 5/5/00, p.A1)
2000 May 4, Hendrik Casimir
(b.1909), Dutch physicist, died. He was best known for his research
on the two-fluid model of superconductors (together with C. J.
Gorter) in 1934 and the Casimir effect (together with D. Polder) in
1946.
(Econ, 5/24/08,
p.105)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hendrik_Casimir)
2000 May 4, In Puerto Rico US
federal agents moved and arrested 216 protestors from the bombing
range on Vieques Island.
(SFC, 5/5/00, p.A1)
2000 May 4, In Sierra Leone
rebels seized more UN troops and brought the total of hostages to
90.
(SFC, 5/5/00, p.A18)
2000 May 4, In Sri Lanka the
government imposed censorship on the foreign media and gave wide
powers to the military as rebels poised to recapture Jaffna.
(SFC, 5/5/00, p.A18)

2001 May 4, US experts,
following 3 days of inspections, said the US spy plane on China’s
Hainan Island could be repaired and flown home.
(SFC, 5/5/01, p.D1)
2001 May 4, Sen. George
Mitchell, head of the US-led mission on Israeli-Palestinian
fighting, issued a report and said Israel should freeze settlement
constructions.
(SFC, 5/5/01, p.D1)
2001 May 4, The US unemployment
rate went up .2% to 4.5%, its highest level in 2 ½ years. The DJIA
rose 154 to 10,951. The Nasdaq rose 45 to 2,191.
(SFC, 5/5/01, p.A1)
2001 May 4, The Writers Guild
of America agreed to a new contract with the major movie studios and
television networks.
(SFC, 5/5/01, p.A1)
2001 May 4, It was reported
that the hydroxyl radical, a critical air-cleaning molecule, was
decreasing.
(SFC, 5/4/01, p.D4)
2001 May 4, Bonny Lee Bakley
(44), the wife of actor Robert Blake (67), died from a bullet wound
to the head as she sat in a car near a restaurant in Los Angeles.
Blake and his bodyguard, Earle Caldwell, were arrested April 18,
2002, in connection with Bakley's death. Blake, accused of the
killing, was acquitted in a 2005 criminal trial but was found liable
by a civil jury and ordered to pay damages.
(BS, 5/12/01, p.3A)(SFC, 4/23/02, p.A3)(SFC,
3/17/05, p.A1)(AP, 5/4/07)
2001 May 4, In Afghanistan a
bomb killed at least 8 people at a Sunni Muslim mosque in Herat.
Hundreds of people soon set fire to Shiite mosques and marched on
the Iranian Consulate.
(SFC, 5/5/01, p.D1)
2001 May 4, In Goma, Congo, a
ferry flipped at a dock on Lake Kivu and at least 19 people died.
(SFC, 5/5/01, p.D1)
2001 May 4, Pope John Paul II
visited Athens and apologized for Roman Catholic sins of “action or
omission" against Orthodox Christians. A day earlier some 1,000
Orthodox conservatives took to the streets to denounce his visit.
(SFC, 5/4/01, p.D3)(AP, 5/4/02)
2001 May 4, The UN Security
Council imposed sanctions against Liberia for failing to sever ties
with rebels in Sierra Leone.
(SFC, 5/5/01, p.D2)

2002 May 4, War Emblem, a 20-1
shot, scored a down-to-the-wire, four-length victory over Proud
Citizen in the Kentucky Derby.
(AP, 5/4/03)
2002 May 4, Five pipe bombs
were found in rural Nebraska mailboxes.
(SSFC, 5/5/02, p.A6)
2002 May 4, In China 2
explosions killed at 34 miners in Guizhou and Hunan.
(SFC, 5/8/02, p.A13)
2002 May 4, In the West Bank
Arafat ordered his negotiators to provide a list of the Palestinians
inside the Church of the Natividad. 123 names were turned over.
Israeli snipers killed one Palestinian inside the compound.
(SSFC, 5/5/02, p.A1,14)
2002 May 4, In Nepal security
forces increased the number of rebels killed in 2 days of fighting
to 350.
(SSFC, 5/5/02, p.A16)
2002 May 4, A Nigerian jet
crashed in Kano. 4 of 76 onboard survived. Nigeria's EAS Airlines
owned the British Aerospace twin-engine jet. The Red Cross reported
145 dead. A total of 154 people on the plane and the ground were
killed.
(SSFC, 5/5/02, p.A16)(SFC, 5/6/02, p.A3)(AP,
5/4/03)

2003 May 4, In Glenbrook, Ill.,
senior girls of Glenbrook North High engaged in a "powder puff"
football game with junior girls that turned into a hazing melee that
was caught on video and shown on national TV. Several seniors were
later suspended for 10 days. A Civil Suit was later filed on behalf
of 3 of the juniors girls.
(SFC, 5/13/03, p.A4)
2003 May 4, New lab studies
reported that the SARS virus can survive outside an infected body
for hours to days.
(SSFC, 5/4/03, p.A1)
2003 May 4, Idaho Gem, the 1st
cloned mule, was born at the Univ. of Idaho.
(SFC, 5/30/03, p.A2)
2003 May 4, Swarms of violent
thunderstorms and tornadoes crashed through the nation's midsection,
killing at least 30 people in Kansas, Missouri and Tennessee. 8
people were missing in Pierce City, Mo.
(AP, 5/5/03)
2003 May 4, In eastern
Bangladesh a tropical storm flattened hundreds of flimsy huts in
several villages, killing 19 people.
(AP, 5/5/03)
2003 May 4, Huda Salih Mahdi
Ammash (49), a top biological weapons scientist and among the top 55
most wanted members of Saddam Hussein's fallen regime, was taken
into custody.
(AP, 5/5/03)
2003 May 4, Police in Baghdad,
Iraq, returned to work in force.
(AP, 5/4/04)
2003 May 4, In Ivory Coast a
new cease-fire agreement took effect, just hours after rebels
accused government forces of fresh attacks.
(AP, 5/4/03)
2003 May 4, In Kenya floods
caused by two weeks of heavy rain have washed out roads and
submerged entire villages, killing at least 30 people and forcing
thousands from their homes.
(AP, 5/5/03)
2003 May 4, In the Philippines
Muslim guerrillas attacked the town of Siocon in the southern
province of Zamboanga del Norte, and took hostages as they withdrew
from fighting that killed at least 22 people.
(AP, 5/4/03)
2003 May 4, A Soyuz spacecraft
safely delivered a three-man, US-Russian crew to Earth in the first
landing since the Columbia space shuttle disaster.
(AP, 5/4/03)
2003 May 4, In Spain Pope John
Paul II proclaimed five new saints and urged Spaniards to emulate
them. They included: Pedro Poveda, a priest killed in 1936; Angela
de la Cruz, who founded the Sisters of the Company of the Cross;
Genoveva Torres, who founded the Sisters of the Sacred Heart and of
the Holy Angels; Maravillas de Jesus, who founded convents for the
Order of Barefoot Carmelites, and Jose Maria Rubio, a Jesuit priest.
(AP, 5/4/03)

2004 May 4, The US Army
disclosed that the deaths of 10 prisoners and abuse of 10 more in
Iraq and Afghanistan were under criminal investigation, as US
commanders in Baghdad announced interrogation changes.
(AP, 5/4/05)
2004 May 4, The United States
walked out of a U.N. meeting to protest its decision minutes later
to give Sudan a third term on the Human Rights Commission.
(AP, 5/4/05)
2004 May 4, William J. Krar
(63) of East Texas was sentenced to 11 years in federal prison for
stockpiling weapons that included a sodium-oxide bomb capable of
killing everyone inside a midsize civic building.
(SFC, 5/5/04, p.A9)
2004 May 4, Oil prices for June
delivery rose to $38.98 a barrel.
(WSJ, 5/5/04, p.A1)
2004 May 4, Some 3,000
firefighters battled wildfires in Southern California.
(SFC, 5/5/04, p.A7)
2004 May 4, In Afghanistan 2
foreign contractors helping the UN prepare for landmark elections
and their Afghan driver were killed in an attack in a remote eastern
province. The bullet-ridden bodies of 10 government soldiers were
found in southern Afghanistan, hours after the men were abducted in
two raids by suspected Taliban militants.
(AP, 5/5/04)
2004 May 4, In Australia 800
delegates of the Country Women's Association of New South Wales
voted to drop the singing of "God Save the Queen" altogether and
only permit renditions of "Advance Australia Fair", the national
anthem.
(AFP, 5/4/04)
2004 May 4, In Bogota Famed
Colombian painter Fernando Botero opened a new exhibition that
graphically depicts the bloodshed of his nation's war and the cruel
crime of kidnapping.
(AP, 5/4/04)
2004 May 4, In Greece 3 bombs
exploded outside a police station near Athens in a series of timed
blasts, causing serious damage just 100 days before the Olympic
Games.
(AP, 5/5/04)
2004 May 4, In Haiti a
provisional council was sworn to oversee fresh elections.
(AP, 5/4/04)
2004 May 4, Shiite militiamen
fired several mortar shells at a U.S. base in Najaf and at a city
hall guarded by Bulgarian troops in another Shiite city. Elsewhere,
four U.S. soldiers died after their Humvee overturned during a
combat patrol.
(AP, 5/4/04)
2004 May 4, Pakistan and China
signed a deal for the construction of a nuclear power plant, the
second such plant to be built in Pakistan with Beijing's help.
(AP, 5/4/04)

2005 May 4, Constantin
Brancusi's "Bird in Space" shattered the record for a sculpture at
auction when it soared to an astonishing $27,450,000 at Christie's
sale of Impressionist and modern art.
(Reuters, 5/5/05)
2005 May 4, A military judge at
Fort Hood, Texas, threw out Pvt. 1st Class Lynndie England's guilty
plea to abusing Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib prison, saying he was
not convinced the Army reservist knew her actions were wrong at the
time. England was later convicted in a court-martial and sentenced
to three years in prison.
(AP, 5/4/06)
2005 May 4, Prosecutors rested
their case in the Michael Jackson molestation trial.
(AP, 5/4/06)
2005 May 4, ABC aired a segment
of "Primetime Live" in which former "American Idol" contestant Corey
Clark claimed an affair with judge Paula Abdul, who denied the
allegation.
(AP, 5/4/06)
2005 May 4, Col. David H.
Hackworth (1931-2005), Vietnam war veteran, died. His books included
“About Face: The Odyssey of an American Warrior" (1990) and
“Hazardous Duty: America's Most Decorated Living Soldier Reports
from the Front and Tells It the Way It Is," (1996) co-authored with
Tom Matthews.
(SFC, 5/7/05, p.B5)
2005 May 4, In China 178 birds
were found dead at Bird Island in Qinghai province in a lake that
served as a major area for research on migratory water fowl. They
were killed by the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu virus. The number
of dead birds was later raised to 1,500 with bar-headed geese among
the most dead.
(WSJ, 5/23/05, p.A11)(SFC, 7/7/05, p.A5)
2005 May 4, Chinese authorities
confined residents in Yanqing, 50 miles north of Beijing, to their
homes following the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in cattle.
Numerous farms were put under quarantine.
(WSJ, 5/24/05, p.A10)
2005 May 4, It was reported
that Cuba and Venezuela agreed to start a joint shipyard in
Venezuela, the latest sign of strengthening economic ties between
the Latin nations.
(AP, 5/4/05)
2005 May 4, The Danish
government said that the mission of Denmark's 530 troops in southern
Iraq would be extended until Feb 1.
(AP, 5/4/05)
2005 May 4, Thousands of
supporters of the banned Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's largest Islamic
group, protested across the country in an escalation of the
opposition campaign demanding political reform. Police arrested
hundreds of protesters.
(AP, 5/4/05)
2005 May 4, An Iraqi carrying
hidden explosives detonated them outside a police recruitment center
in Arbil where people were applying for jobs, killing at least 60
Iraqis and wounding some 100. The Iraqi militant group Ansar
al-Sunnah claimed responsibility for the bombing saying in a Web
statement the attack was revenge for the Kurds' alliance with US
forces.
(AP, 5/4/05)(SFC, 5/5/05, p.A1)(Econ, 5/7/05,
p.19)
2005 May 4, Israeli Defense
Minister Shaul Mofaz said he is freezing the handover of West Bank
towns to Palestinian security control because the Palestinians have
failed to honor their promise to disarm militants.
(AP, 5/4/05)
2005 May 4, Israeli soldiers
shot and killed two Palestinian youths in a West Bank village near
the city of Ramallah.
(AP, 5/5/05)
2005 May 4, Japanese media
reported Japan will withdraw its 550 soldiers from their non-combat
mission in Iraq in December.
(AP, 5/4/05)
2005 May 4, Mexico's government
cleared the capital's mayor of wrongdoing, conceding defeat in a
nasty political fight that ousted an attorney general and raised
criticisms that President Vicente Fox was trying to block his top
rival from running for president.
(AP, 5/5/05)

2006 May 4, In Virginia US
Judge Leonie Brinkema sent Zacarias Moussaoui to prison for life, to
"die with a whimper," for his role in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist
attacks. He declared: "God save Osama bin Laden, you will never get
him." The US military released video footage of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi
in which the al-Qaida leader was seen wearing American tennis shoes
and unable to operate his automatic rifle.
(AP, 5/4/07)
2006 May 4, A US federal court
ruled that over 9,500 victims of human rights abuses under Ferdinand
Marcos (1917-1989) were entitled to $35 million in a US account,
which he established in 1972. Damages awarded in 1995 reached nearly
$2 million.
(SFC, 5/5/06, p.B7)
2006 May 4, A US government
study said some 300,000 US children have been diagnosed with autism.
(SFC, 5/5/06, p.A8)
2006 May 4, Afghan warlord
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar pledged fealty to al Qaeda. He controlled a
large network in eastern Afghanistan.
(WSJ, 5/5/06, p.A1)
2006 May 4, Brazil’s President
Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva met with Argentina’s Pres. Nestor
Kirchner, Venezuela’s Pres. Chavez and Bolivia’s Pres. Morales in
response to Bolivia’s decision to nationalize its oil and gas
industry. Morales offered to refrain from cutting off supplies and
to negotiate prices.
(Econ, 5/13/06, p.43)
2006 May 4, Britain took
command of NATO's Afghan peacekeeping force as a tide of violence
raised apprehension about the alliance's planned takeover of
security duties across the country from US forces.
(AP, 5/4/06)
2006 May 4, Cambodia's highest
judicial body approved 30 Cambodian and UN judges to preside over a
long-awaited genocide tribunal for surviving Khmer Rouge leaders.
(AP, 5/4/06)
2006 May 4, Chinese weather
specialists used chemicals to engineer Beijing's heaviest rainfall
of the year, helping to relieve drought and rinse dust from China's
capital.
(AP, 5/5/06)
2006 May 4, Over Chinese and
Russian opposition, Western nations circulated a UN Security Council
resolution that would demand Iran abandon uranium enrichment or face
the threat of unspecified further measures, a possible reference to
sanctions.
(AP, 5/4/06)
2006 May 4, Palaniappan
Chidambaram, India's finance minister, warned that a slowdown in the
US may trigger a worldwide recession that if "disorderly" will hit
emerging market economies hard. Speaking at the 39th annual meeting
of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), he said global economic growth
continued to depend heavily on the US economy.
(AP, 5/4/06)
2006 May 4, A suicide bomber
attacked a crowd of people waiting outside a heavily guarded court
building in Baghdad, killing 10 Iraqis and wounding 52. Two US
soldiers died in a roadside bomb attack.
(AP, 5/4/06)
2006 May 4, Lithuania hosted
leaders from the European Union, United States and the burgeoning
democracies in the Black Sea region at a summit on the future of the
EU and the NATO military alliance. Vice President Dick Cheney, in
remarks that caused a stir in neighboring Russia, accused President
Vladimir Putin of restricting the rights of citizens and said that
"no legitimate interest is served" by turning energy resources into
implements of blackmail.
(www.defensenews.com/story.php?F=1746272&C=europe)(AP, 5/4/06)
2006 May 4, Just before dawn
hundreds of law enforcement officials fired tear gas and crashed
through human barricades to take control of San Salvador Atenco, a
rebellious town outside Mexico City, hours after protesters released
six badly beaten police hostages.
(AP, 5/4/06)
2006 May 4, In Nepal Communist
rebels agreed to a new round of peace talks with the government,
raising hopes for an end to a decade-old insurgency that has killed
13,000 people.
(AP, 5/4/06)
2006 May 4, Nicaraguan Foreign
Minister Norman Caldera asked Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to
butt out of his country's political affairs after Chavez signed a
favorable oil pact with dozens of leftist Nicaraguan mayors.
(AP, 5/5/06)
2006 May 4, Puerto Rico moved a
step closer to resolving a partial government shutdown as the
island's Senate voted to impose a sales tax of 5.9% and a new levy
on large corporations.
(AP, 5/4/06)
2006 May 4, Thousands of police
armed with batons stormed an abandoned school in South Korea to
evict activists who were protesting plans to expand a US military
base, sparking clashes that resulted in dozens of injuries.
(AP, 5/4/06)
2006 May 4, The Vatican
excommunicated two bishops ordained by China's state-controlled
church without the pope's consent, escalating tensions as the two
sides explored preliminary moves toward improving ties.
(AP, 5/4/06)
2006 May 4, Venezuelan
President Hugo Chavez said he was withdrawing his ambassador from
Peru as a matter of principle after Peru called home its ambassador.
(AP, 5/4/06)

2007 May 4, US federal
officials placed a hold on 20 million chickens raised for market in
several states because their feed was mixed with pet food containing
an industrial chemical.
(AP, 5/5/07)
2007 May 4, The United States
said it will provide more than $14 million in security assistance to
Kenya to boost efforts to combat terrorist activities in the east
African nation.
(AP, 5/5/07)
2007 May 4, An Alaska lawmaker
and two of his former colleagues were arrested for allegedly
soliciting and accepting bribes from VECO Corp., a private oil
services company, to pass a new oil-tax system.
(Reuters, 5/4/07)
2007 May 4, Reuters Group PLC
said that it had received a preliminary takeover approach. The
bidder was identified as Thomson Corp., a financial data and
information provider based in Stamford, Conn., owned by the Thomson
family of Canada.
(AP, 5/4/07)(http://tinyurl.com/2m8qt5)
2007 May 4, Tornadoes in
southwest Kansas killed at least seven people and leveled most of
Greensburg.
(AP, 5/5/07)
2007 May 4, In Austria a
standoff pitting Iran against most others delegations at a
130-nation nuclear conference deepened, with organizers adjourning
the third straight session in as many days without breaking a
deadlock over the language of the meeting's agenda.
(AP, 5/4/07)
2007 May 4, Two Azerbaijani
journalists were convicted and sentenced to prison for inciting
hatred with an article criticizing Islam.
(AP, 5/4/07)
2007 May 4, Brazil’s Pres. Lula
da Silva issued a license allowing Brazil to buy or produce a cheap
generic version of AIDS drug efavirenz, bypassing Merck’s patent.
The compulsory licensing for efavirenz will allow Brazil to import
unbranded copies at a quarter of current prices while paying Merck a
nominal royalty.
(WSJ, 5/5/07, p.A1)(Econ, 5/12/07, p.42)
2007 May 4, A British court
found Frederick Chiluba, Zambia's first democratically elected
president (1991-2001), guilty of stealing $46 million in government
funds and ordered him to repay the entire sum. He had gone on trial
in Zambia in 2003, accused of 169 counts of corruption, abuse of
power and theft, but was declared unfit to stand trial on the
grounds of ill health.
(AP, 5/4/07)(Econ, 11/21/09, p.51)
2007 May 4, A rebel spokesman
said a Saudi-brokered reconciliation deal signed by Chad with its
neighbor Sudan will not halt a guerrilla war by Chadian rebels aimed
at toppling President Idriss Deby.
(Reuters, 5/4/07)
2007 May 4, In Guinea soldiers
protesting the government's failure to give them promised pay raises
beat a shopkeeper to death as they looted his store and fired shots
in the air, wounding at least 25 civilians.
(AP, 5/4/07)
2007 May 4, A boat loaded with
Haitian migrants capsized while being towed by a police boat from
the Turks and Caicos Islands. 78 of some 160 people survived.
Haitian migrants later claimed a Turks and Caicos naval vessel
rammed their crowded sailboat twice before it capsized.
(AP, 5/4/07)(SFC, 5/5/07, p.A8)(AP, 5/8/07)
2007 May 4, A roadside bomb
killed five Iraqi policemen on a patrol in western Baghdad. US
forces broke up a Shiite militant cell believed to be smuggling an
armor-piercing Iranian weapon responsible for an increasing number
of American and Iraqi deaths. 16 suspected militants were arrested
in the Baghdad raid. 7 bodies were found floating in the Diyala
River in Baqouba. The bullet-riddled bodies of five police officers,
dressed in civilian clothes, were discovered outside the city of
Beiji. The US military identified two more top al-Qaida aides killed
during an operation earlier this week targeting Muharib Abdul-Latif
al-Jubouri. A US soldier was killed and two were wounded when their
patrol was hit by a roadside bomb south of Baghdad. A roadside bomb
killed a US soldier and wounded four others in western Baghdad.
(AP, 5/4/07)(AP, 5/5/07)(AP, 5/6/07)
2007 May 4, Assailants in
western Baghdad looted and burned the building which housed
independent Radio Dijla, founded by Ahmed Rikaby in 2004. The attack
came one day after staffers fought off some 2 dozen gunmen. Staff
moved to new quarters in Sulaymaniya and within 9 days resumed
broadcasting.
(SFC, 11/22/07, p.A25)
2007 May 4, The divided Koreas
agreed to discuss historic trial runs of cross-border railways, as
Washington cautioned Seoul against rushing to embrace Pyongyang
before it takes steps to dismantle its nuclear program.
(AP, 5/4/07)
2007 May 4, In Somalia Mohamed
Dheere, a former warlord, was sworn in as mayor of Mogadishu and
immediately ordered residents to get rid of their weapons. Aid
groups said 1,670 people were killed between March 12 and April 26
and more than 340,000 of the city's 2 million residents fled for
safety as the government, backed by Ethiopian troops, pressed to
wipe out an Islamic insurgency.
(AP, 5/4/07)
2007 May 4, Delegates meeting
in Thailand from 120 countries approved the first roadmap for
stemming greenhouse gas emissions, laying out what they said was an
affordable arsenal of anti-warming measures that must be rushed into
place to avert a disastrous spike in global temperatures.
(AP, 5/4/07)
2007 May 4, Ukraine's president
and prime minister reached agreement on holding early parliamentary
elections in a bid to end a political standoff between the rival
leaders.
(AP, 5/4/07)
2007 May 4, Former Iranian
President Mohammad Khatami met with Pope Benedict XVI for talks the
Vatican hoped would help heal tensions left from the pontiff's
remarks on Islam and violence, but the Iranian said the wounds were
still very deep.
(AP, 5/4/07)
2007 May 4, The UN agency for
refugees began repatriating thousands of Congolese refugees in
Zambia to the Democratic Republic of Congo.
(AFP, 5/4/07)

2008 May 4, Democrat Barack
Obama beat rival Hillary Clinton by just 7 votes in Guam's
nominating contest after record numbers of residents voted in the
tiny US territory's primary.
(AP, 5/4/08)
2008 May 4, Abkhazian
anti-aircraft forces shot down 2 unmanned Georgian spy planes. A
Georgian Foreign Ministry official, dismissed the claims as
"completely absurd disinformation" aimed at increasing tension in
the area.
(AP, 5/4/08)
2008 May 4, In Afghanistan an
accidental explosion left 2 people dead and 13 wounded at a refuse
dump in Kabul’s northern outskirts.
(AP, 5/5/08)
2008 May 4, Residents of
Bolivia voted on an autonomy referendum whose likely passage is seen
as a rebuke to the country's leftist president. Exit polls showed
the Santa Cruz referendum would pass in a landslide. Pres. Morales
denounced the vote but quickly invited state governors for further
negotiations.
(AP, 5/4/08)(AP, 5/5/08)
2008 May 4, In Brazil a boat
ferrying people home from a religious festival sank in the Amazon
region on the Solimoes River leaving at least 41 dead and dozens
missing.
(AP, 5/5/08)(AP, 5/7/08)
2008 May 4, In the Cayman
Islands 5 captive Grand Cayman Blue Iguanas, critically endangered
lizards that resemble miniature turquoise dragons, were found
scattered across a breeding park in the British dependency after
they apparently were stomped and gouged.
(AP, 5/7/08)
2008 May 4, In Chechnya a
remote-controlled bomb exploded on a roadside in Grozny, leaving
five police officers dead, while another officer was fatally shot
near the city.
(AP, 5/5/08)
2008 May 4, China's Pres. Hu
Jintao said he was hoping for positive results with envoys of the
Dalai Lama, as talks opened, but state media kept up a barrage of
attacks on Tibet's exiled spiritual leader. In Shenzhen envoys of
the Dalai Lama and Chinese officials held a day of talks aimed at
mending fences following a wave of unrest that pushed Tibet to
centre stage ahead of the 2008 Olympics. They agreed to further
contact.
(Reuters, 5/4/08)(Reuters, 5/5/08)
2008 May 4, China's Health
Ministry issued a nationwide alert after the enterovirus 71 virus,
or EV-71, which causes hand, foot and mouth disease, infected more
than 4,500 children in central Anhui province. The outbreak was
centered around Fuyang city, where 22 deaths have occurred.
(AP, 5/4/08)
2008 May 4, In India 16 people,
including three children, were killed when an overcrowded jeep
crashed into a truck outside Mumbai. The jeep was filled with
members of a family traveling to a wedding party.
(AP, 5/4/08)
2008 May 4, A bomb hit a
motorcade carrying Iraq's first lady through Baghdad. Iraqi health
officials said at least 10 people, including two children, were
killed in the past 24 hours in the Baghdad neighborhood of Sadr
City. 2 Iraqi civilians were wounded in a Hellfire missile attack in
Baghdad's southwestern Aamel neighborhood and were evacuated to a
military hospital.
(AP, 5/4/08)(AP, 5/5/08)
2008 May 4, In Japan thousands
of activists, artists and scholars gathered for an international
peace conference outside Tokyo, vowing to promote the Japanese
Constitution's war-renouncing Article 9 as a global standard and
prevent the clause from being weakened.
(AP, 5/4/08)
2008 May 4, Senegal’s Pres.
Abdoulaye Wade called the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organization
(FAO) a “bottomless pit of money largely spent on its own
functioning."
(Econ, 5/10/08, p.69)
2008 May 4, In Somalia Islamic
insurgents killed at least three Ethiopian soldiers during a
gunfight in Mogadishu. Inter-clan fighting in western Somalia, which
broke out the previous evening, left at least 12 people dead and at
least 15 others wounded in a land dispute.
(AP, 5/4/08)
2008 May 4, In South Korea at
least eight were people killed when they were swept away by high
waves that hit the port of Boryeong Namdo on the west coast.
(Reuters, 5/4/08)
2008 May 4, In Sudan government
bombs hit a primary school and a busy market place in Darfur,
killing at 12 people, including 6 children. Darfur rebels said three
other areas were also bombed: Ein Sirro and Jabel Medop in North
Darfur and an area in West Darfur near rebel-held Jabel Moun.
(Reuters, 5/5/08)(AP, 5/6/08)
2008 May 4, A Shiite rebel
leader in Yemen warned that his group will escalate its fight
against the government if the army continues an offensive that has
left almost 20 rebels and soldiers dead over the past two days.
(AP, 5/4/08)

2009 May 4, President Barack
Obama proposed changing provisions in the tax code that he says
encourage US companies to move jobs overseas, as part of a broader
package aimed at saving $210 billion over 10 years.
(Reuters, 5/4/09)
2009 May 4, An analysis of
"real-world" clinical data indicated that vitamin E, and drugs that
reduce generalized inflammation, may slow the decline of mental and
physical abilities in people with Alzheimer's disease (AD) over the
long term according to National Institutes of Health-sponsored
research.
(Reuters, 5/4/09)
2009 May 4, The Bill &
Melinda Gates Foundation awarded eighty one $100,000 grants in a bid
to support innovative, unconventional global health research. The
foundation also announced plans to spend $73 million over the next
five years to help small farmers in impoverished countries.
(AP, 5/5/09)
2009 May 4, Wolves in parts of
the northern Rockies and the Great Lakes region come off the
endangered species list, opening them to public hunts in some states
for the first time in decades. States such as Idaho and Montana
planned to resume hunting the animals this fall, but no hunting has
been proposed in the Great Lakes region. About 300 wolves in Wyoming
will remain on the list because the US Fish and Wildlife Service
rejected the state's plan for a "predator zone" where wolves could
be shot on sight. An estimated 4,000 wolves lived in Michigan,
Wisconsin and Minnesota.
(AP, 5/4/09)
2009 May 4, California’s State
Water Resources Control board released a study that said only 21 of
152 lakes studied were free of mercury and other contaminants. 131
lakes showed one or more pollutants above state health guidelines.
(SFC, 5/5/09, p.A1)
2009 May 4, In Kentucky Amanda
Hornsby-Smith (28) was strangled to death. In 2010 her husband,
Woody Will Smith (33), went on trial for her murder. He claimed
excessive caffeine from sodas, energy drinks and diet pills left him
so mentally unstable he couldn't have knowingly killed her.
(AP, 9/20/10)
2009 May 4, Dom DeLuise
(b.1933), film and TV actor, died. Though lighthearted onscreen, the
prolific actor was deeply passionate about food, forging a second
career as a popular chef and cookbook author.
(AP, 5/5/09)
2009 May 4, In Afghanistan
bombing runs by US-led coalition jets killed dozens of civilians
taking shelter from a fierce ground battle between Taliban militants
and Afghan and international forces. The US confirmed fighting in
western Farah province and opened an investigation into the
overnight operation. Over 100 people were killed including 25-30
Taliban. A senior US defense official later said that Marine special
operations forces believe that the Afghan civilians were killed by
grenades hurled by Taliban militants, who then loaded some of the
bodies into a vehicle and drove them around the village, claiming
the dead were victims of an American airstrike. On May 20 the US
military said at least 20 civilians and 60 insurgents had died in
the clash.
(AP, 5/5/09)(AFP, 5/6/09)(AP, 5/7/09)(AP,
5/20/09)
2009 May 4, An Afghan guard was
killed by Australian Robert William Langdon as he worked for
US-based private security company Four Horsemen International. A
court later heard that Langdon threw a hand grenade into the truck
carrying the guard's body and ordered other guards to fire into the
air to simulate a Taliban attack. Langdon allegedly admitted killing
the Afghan guard during a heated argument about security for a
convoy. In October Langdon was convicted of murder and sentenced to
death in a court in Kabul. He paid a "sizeable" compensation to the
victim's family and the sentenced was reduced to 20 years.
(AP, 1/27/10)(http://tinyurl.com/ybfe5lu)(AFP,
1/6/11)
2009 May 4, Australia's
government put back its much-vaunted carbon-emissions trading scheme
by a year, bowing to industry demands for more relief amid a
recession while opening the door to an even deeper long-term
reduction.
(Reuters, 5/4/09)
2009 May 4, The EU admitted
that its previous forecasts were way off the mark. It now predicts
"a deep and widespread recession" across the continent and said
unemployment among the 16 nations that use the euro will rise to a
postwar record of 11.5 percent in 2010.
(AP, 5/4/09)
2009 May 4, In Germany Sergio
Marchionne, the boss of Italy's Fiat, drummed up support in Berlin
for audacious plans to snap up General Motors' European arm and
merge it with the bankrupt Chrysler to create a new global auto
giant. Germany's economy minister said Fiat Group SpA wants to take
over GM's Opel unit without running up debt and would preserve the
three main German assembly plants if successful.
(AFP, 5/4/09)(AP, 5/4/09)
2009 May 4, Indonesia's top
graft-buster, Antasari Azhar (56), was arrested as a suspect and a
mastermind in the March 14 murder of businessman Nasrudin
Zulkarnaen.
(AP, 5/5/09)
2009 May 4, Iraq’s Foreign
Ministry summoned the Iranian ambassador to Baghdad and handed him a
letter of protest, demanding that Iran halt shelling against Kurdish
rebels in the country's north and warned the "extremely dangerous
violations" of Iraqi territory could harm relations between the two
countries.
(AP, 5/5/09)
2009 May 4, Mexico's health
secretary said most businesses will reopen May 6 nationwide, citing
ebb in the swine flu outbreak. The World Health Organization chief
warned that swine flu could return with a vengeance despite Pres.
Felipe Calderon insisting his country has contained the epidemic.
(AP, 5/4/09)(AFP, 5/4/09)
2009 May 4, Nepal's PM Pushpa
Kamal Dahal resigned amid a power struggle over his firing of the
army chief, saying he was stepping down to "save the peace process"
that brought the Himalayan nation out of a bloody decade-long civil
war.
(AP, 5/4/09)
2009 May 4, Niger’s Pres.
Mamadou Tandja accompanied representatives of French energy giant
Areva at a ceremony marking the beginning of a new uranium project
in Imoraren. The site is expected to boost Niger's uranium
production from 3,000 to 5,000 tons per year.
(AP, 5/4/09)
2009 May 4, In Pakistan clashes
in a northwestern region covered by an increasingly fragile peace
pact killed seven militants and one soldier. The Taliban ambushed an
army convoy in Swat and armed Taliban appeared on the streets of
Mingora.
(AP, 5/4/09)(Econ, 5/9/09, p.45)
2009 May 4, South Korean
snipers hovering in a helicopter chased away pirates pursuing a
North Korean freighter, while the Russian destroyer Admiral
Panteleyev freed eight Iranian citizens held hostage for more than
three months.
(AP, 5/4/09)
2009 May 4, South Korean news
reported that North Korea runs a cyber warfare unit that tries to
hack into US and South Korean military networks to gather
confidential information and disrupt service.
(AP, 5/5/09)
2009 May 4, Sri Lankan forces
battled Tamil Tiger insurgents, pushing deeper into rebel-held
territory amid a report that navy gunboats heavily shelled an area
packed with civilians.
(AP, 5/4/09)
2009 May 4, In Turkey masked
assailants with automatic weapons attacked an engagement celebration
in the village of Bilge, near the city of Mardin, fatally shooting
44 people.
(AP, 5/5/09)
2009 May 4, In southern Yemen
armed protesters ambushed a military camp in Radfan killing one
soldier, as separatist sentiment mounted against the weak central
government.
(SFC, 5/5/09, p.A2)

2010 May 4, Ohio voters passed
ballot proposal Issue 1. It allowed the state to issue $700 million
of bonds to finance research and development for the so-called
“Third Frontier" program, which was launched in 2002
(Econ, 5/1/10, p.34)(http://tinyurl.com/25tu3te)
2010 May 4, In Afghanistan
Hayat Khan, a tribal elder, was gunned down while he was shopping in
the volatile southern city of Kandahar, the latest targeted killing
ahead of a NATO-led operation there that will be a critical test of
the Afghan war. A former member of southern Zabul province's women's
affairs department was fatally shot. In northern Kunduz province
Taliban militants killed two civilians they accused of spying for
the government.
(AP, 5/4/10)
2010 May 4, The leaders of
South America named former Argentine President Nestor Kirchner as
their secretary-general, setting aside their differences in hopes
that the 12-nation Unasur group can consolidate into a regional
force for unity, development and democracy-building.
(AP, 5/4/10)
2010 May 4, Alfredo Martinez de
Hoz (84), the powerful economy minister who ran Argentina's finances
during most of the dictatorship (1976-1983), was arrested and his
bank accounts were frozen. The arrest followed a Supreme Court
ruling last week deeming unconstitutional a 1990 presidential pardon
granted to Martinez de Hoz and former dictator Jorge Videla.
(AFP, 5/4/10)(AP, 5/6/10)
2010 May 4, British Petroleum
said efforts to contain a giant oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico are
costing nearly four million pounds a day. Winds pushed a giant slick
towards fragile wetlands on the US coast as efforts intensified to
bottle up a ruptured oil well causing the growing environmental
disaster.
(AFP, 5/4/10)
2010 May 4, The Croatian
government and the UN said Justice Minister Ivan Simonovic has been
chosen to be assistant UN secretary-general for human rights.
(AP, 5/4/10)
2010 May 4, French lawmakers
decided to return 16 tattooed and mummified Maori heads to New
Zealand, ending years of debate on what to do with the human remains
acquired long ago by French museums seeking exotic curiosities.
(AP, 5/4/10)
2010 May 4, Greek protesters
unfurled banners over the defensive walls of the ancient Acropolis,
the country's most famous monument, to protest harsh new austerity
measures as strikes began across the country.
(AP, 5/4/10)
2010 May 4, Iceland's volcanic
ash renewed its threat to European air space, forcing Ireland to
shut services temporarily for the first time in 12 days. Ireland and
Britain lifted flight restrictions after temporarily closing
airspace due to the return of ash.
(AP, 5/4/10)(AFP, 5/4/10)
2010 May 4, Iran called for
independent verification of US claims it has pared its stockpile of
nuclear warheads back to 5,113 and queried whether Washington was
justified in holding such a lethal load.
(AFP, 5/4/10)
2010 May 4, In Iran 5 Kurdish
rebels, including two women, were killed after they battled Iran's
elite Revolutionary Guards in the western province of Kermanshah.
(AFP, 5/5/10)
2010 May 4, Iraq's two main
Shiite blocs seeking to govern the country signed an agreement that
gives the final decision on all their political disputes to top
Shiite clerics. The provision would likely further alienate Iraq's
Sunni minority, which already feels excluded by Shiite dominance and
had been hoping that March's election would boost their say in
power. Sardasht Osman (22) was kidnapped in the regional capital
Arbil. He had written articles critical of the rule of Kurdish
regional president Massud Barzani. His corpse was found a day later
in Mosul with a single bullet to the head. On Sep 15 an
investigative committee formed by Barzani said that Osman was killed
because of his ties to an extremist group.
(AP, 5/5/10)(AFP, 9/16/10)
2010 May 4, In Mexico two
Colombians were arrested at Mexico City's international airport as
they allegedly prepared to board a flight to Panama trying to
smuggle out more than $350,000 in cash in various currencies.
(AP, 5/15/10)
2010 May 4, Tin Tun Aung,
secretary of the Myanmar Travel Entrepreneurs Association, said
tourist visas, which are normally arranged days in advance at an
embassy abroad, will be now be available at international airports
in Mandalay and the biggest city, Yangon.
(Reuters, 5/4/10)
2010 May 4, In Nepal armed
police escorted fuel and food trucks into Katmandu on the third day
of a crippling general strike called by former Maoist rebels
demanding the PM's resignation.
(AP, 5/4/10)
2010 May 4, Royal Dutch Shell
said it spilled nearly 14,000 tons of oil into the creeks of the
Niger Delta in 2009 and blamed thieves and militants for the
environmental damage.
(SFC, 5/5/10, p.A2)
2010 May 4, Fires ripped
through a mosque and an olive grove in two West Bank villages, and
local Palestinians accused Jewish settlers of deliberately setting
the blazes.
(AP, 5/4/10)
2010 May 4, The Philippine
election commission ordered the recall of 76,000 memory cards to be
used in the country's first automated elections next week after some
were found to be defective, heightening jitters over a possible
failure of the new system.
(AP, 5/4/10)
2010 May 4, Spain’s Interior
Ministry said Spain has taken in a second former inmate from the
Guantanamo Bay prison for terrorism suspects. Another Guantanamo
detainee was sent to Bulgaria. This left about 181 prisoners at
Guantanamo Bay prison.
(AP, 5/4/10)(SFC, 5/5/10, p.A2)
2010 May 4, Taiwan opened a
tourism office in Beijing that represents the island's first
official presence in China's capital since the two sides split amid
civil war in 1949.
(AP, 5/4/10)
2010 May 4, Thai
anti-government protesters welcomed a proposed compromise to end the
violent political crisis that has paralyzed central Bangkok for
nearly two months, but asked for more details on the plan before
wrapping up their demonstrations.
(AP, 5/4/10)
2010 May 4, In Venezuela a riot
at the Santa Ana Prison in the western state of Tachira, one of the
country’s most violent prisons, left eight inmates dead and three
injured.
(AP, 5/5/10)

2011 May 4, President Barack
Obama declared parts of Kentucky, Mississippi and Tennessee as
disaster areas due to flooding, freeing up federal aid to help those
affected.
(Reuters, 5/5/11)
2011 May 4, The US Interior
Dept. declared wolves fully recovered in most of the Northern
Rockies, opening the door for hunts in the Fall.
(SFC, 5/5/11, p.A7)
2011 May 4, A San Ramon, Ca.,
police officer, Louis Lombardi (38), was arrested after he was
linked to an ongoing probe into the theft of confiscated drugs. On
Jan 26, 2012, Lombardi pleaded guilty to charges that he sold drugs
with his commanding officer, stole jewelry and cash from crime
scenes and possessed stolen guns.
(SFC, 5/5/11, p.C1)(SFC, 1/27/12, p.C1)
2011 May 4, In Oklahoma Sandlin
Matthews Smith was shot and killed after he pulled a gun on federal
agents trying to arrest him. Smith faced federal charges in
connection with the bombing of the Islamic Center of Northeast
Florida last May.
(SFC, 5/6/11, p.A8)
2011 May 4, In Texas Jacob
Gonzalez (21) fatally shot three women riding with him in a car in
Corpus Christi. Gonzalez fled on foot after his vehicle smashed into
a pole and was tackled by a bystander.
(SFC, 5/7/11, p.A4)
2011 May 4, Applied Materials
said it has agreed to pay $4.9 billion for Varian Semiconductor
Equipment Associates Inc.
(SFC, 5/5/11, p.D2)
2011 May 4, Intel unveiled its
new Ivy Bridge processor made with a 3-D manufacturing technique
that increases chip performance as much as 37% while using less
power.
(SFC, 5/5/11, p.D3)
2011 May 4, Actress Mary Murphy
(80) died of heart disease in Beverly Hills. She was discovered in a
coffee shop and landed a role as the small-town wholesome girl
opposite Marlon Brando in "The Wild One." Murphy had several roles
in 1950s films, including "The Desperate Hours," "Beachhead," "A Man
Alone," "Sitting Bull" and "The Mad Magician."
(AP, 5/16/11)
2011 May 4, The Chinese Embassy
in Oslo said Sino-Norwegian relations are "in difficulty" because
the peace prize was given to "a Chinese criminal ... and the
Norwegian government supported this wrong decision." Norwegian
salmon exporters were having their fish held up for days or even
weeks by Chinese food safety inspectors, devastating its freshness.
(AP, 5/6/11)
2011 May 4, In Costa Rica Ohio
teenager Caity Jones died in the Pacific Ocean when she was pulled
by an undertow current. Two other students, on a school mission
trip, were swept out with her. The body of James Smith was recovered
the next day. The body of Kai Lamar was recovered on May 6.
(AP, 5/5/11)(AP, 5/6/11)
2011 May 4, A Gervais beaked
whale washed up on the southeastern coast of Puerto Rico. A necropsy
of the whale found more than 10 pounds (4.5 kg) of twisted plastic
inside its stomach.
(AP, 5/7/11)
2011 May 4, In Egypt hundreds
of diehard supporters of ousted president Hosni Mubarak clashed with
his foes in central Cairo leaving dozens injured.
(AFP, 5/5/11)
2011 May 4, The European Union
said six Zimbabwean state-media journalists are on a sanctions list
because they incite hatred in their reporting. The journalists who
fiercely support President Robert Mugabe are among some 200
individuals linked to Mugabe's party who face banking and travel
bans from the EU, the US and Britain.
(AP, 5/4/11)
2011 May 4, New computer
modeling showed that Japan's many language variants descended from a
common ancestor some 2,182 years ago -- coinciding with the major
wave of migration from the Korean Peninsula.
(AP, 5/5/11)
2011 May 4, In Libya Gadhafi's
forces shelled Zintan a rebel town and a key supply route, part of a
push to crush stubborn resistance in the mountains of western Libya.
(AP, 5/4/11)
2011 May 4, In western Nepal a
bus veered off a mountain road, killing at least 16 people and
injuring 20 others in the country's second serious bus accident in
two days.
(AP, 5/4/11)
2011 May 4, Rival Palestinian
factions Fatah and Hamas proclaimed a landmark, Egyptian-mediated
reconciliation pact signed in Cairo aimed at ending their bitter
four-year rift. Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal said that his Islamist
movement would work to achieve the "Palestinian national goal" of a
sovereign state on the Gaza Strip and West Bank. Gaza's Hamas rulers
executed a man convicted of collaborating with Israel. His execution
was the 11th in Gaza since Hamas violently wrested control of the
territory in June 2007.
(AP, 5/4/11)(AFP, 5/4/11)(AP, 5/5/11)(Econ,
5/7/11, p.51)
2011 May 4, South Korean police
said the body of a man with his hands and feet nailed to a wooden
cross and a crown of thorns on his head has been found in an
abandoned stone quarry in Mungyong.
(AP, 5/4/11)
2011 May 4, A Turkish police
officer was shot dead by unidentified assailants in the northern
city of Kastamonu, where PM Tayyip Erdogan had been speaking earlier
in the day.
(Reuters, 5/4/11)
2011 May 4, In Uganda some 300
lawyers gathered in Kampala to protest the arrest of the country's
top opposition leader and a crackdown on demonstrations.
(AP, 5/4/11)
2011 May 4, Ukrainian
prosecutors said they have opened a criminal investigation against
the former head of the Kiev Zoo, where hundreds of animals have died
or gone mysteriously missing in recent years. Svitlana Berzina was
suspected of embezzling some $47,000 (euro32,000) from the zoo by
commissioning projects that weren't fully carried out, if at all.
Berzina was fired last year after nearly one-half of the zoo's
animals either died or disappeared.
(AP, 5/4/11)
2011 May 4, The Vatican
condemned former Canadian Bishop Raymond Lahey after he pleaded
guilty to possession of child pornography and said it planned to
take disciplinary action against him.
(Reuters, 5/4/11)
2011 May 4, Vietnam’s central
bank raised a key interest rate to 14% presented a package of
commitments, titled Resolution II, to tighten money and credit.
Consumer prices had risen 17.5% in the year to April.
(Econ, 5/7/11, p.79)
2011 May 4, In Yemen an
explosion ripped through a military vehicle in Zinjibar killing 5
soldiers. 4 other civilians died in an ensuing firefight.
(SFC, 5/5/11, p.A2)

2012 May 4, The United States
said that China had indicated it would let blind activist Chen
Guangcheng and his family leave the country soon, raising hopes of a
resolution to a damaging diplomatic crisis.
(AFP, 5/4/12)
2012 May 4, Disgraced former
press baron Conrad Black (67) was released from a Florida prison
after ending his sentence and flown to his home in Canada, which has
granted him a temporary resident permit despite his criminal record.
(Reuters, 5/4/12)
2012 May 4, Arizona Governor
Jan Brewer signed into law a bill banning abortion providers like
Planned Parenthood from receiving money through the state, her
office said in a statement.
(Reuters, 5/5/12)
2012 May 4, Federal agents in
southern California arrested Michael Franks (29), suspected in 10
bank heists. He was dubbed the Snowboarder Bandit for often wearing
snowboarder cloths.
(SSFC, 5/6/12, p.A9)
2012 May 4, A federal jury in
Nashville split its verdict against 9 people accused of operating a
sex trafficking ring run mostly by Somali refugee gang members. 3
men were convicted of conspiracy to commit sex trafficking of
children. 6 men were acquitted.
(SFC, 5/5/12, p.A5)
2012 May 4, Adam Yauch (47),
the gravelly voiced rapper, aka MCA), who helped make the Beastie
Boys one of the seminal groups in hip-hop, died of cancer.
(AP, 5/4/12)
2012 May 4, In southern
Afghanistan two NATO coalition service members were killed in an
insurgent attack. A remote-controlled roadside bomb killed five
border police in Nangarhar province near the border with Pakistan.
(AP, 5/4/12)(AP, 5/5/12)
2012 May 4, Australian Police
hunted for a gang of Sydney street robbers who threw feces at their
victims to distract them before grabbing their money.
(AFP, 5/4/12)
2012 May 4, British PM David
Cameron's Conservative Party took an electoral bruising, suffering
widespread losses in local elections as voters punished the leader
for biting austerity measures and a stalled economy. Deputy PM Nick
Clegg's Liberal Democrats suffered similar woes. In London Cameron's
Conservative Party colleague Boris Johnson swept to a second
four-year term as the British capital's mayor.
(AP, 5/4/12)
2012 May 4, Canada minted its
final one-cent coin and urged people to donate the little
copper-covered coins to charity rather than let them go to waste.
(Reuters, 5/4/12)
2012 May 4, In Egypt thousands
rallied against the country's ruling military council, two days
after a flare-up of street violence left at least nine dead and
fueled a wave of Islamist-led opposition to the generals ahead of
presidential elections. Military prosecutors detained some 320
Egyptian protesters following clashes outside the country's Defense
Ministry. Two people were reported killed and over 300 people
injured.
(AP, 5/4/12)(AFP, 5/5/12)
2012 May 4, In India a Reliance
company executive said the government has asked the energy giant to
pay a $1.25 billion penalty for a fall in gas production from its
main oil fields.
(AFP, 5/4/12)
2012 May 4, Iranians lined up
at polling stations for a second round of parliamentary elections.
Conservative opponents of Pres. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad already won an
outright majority of seats of the new parliament in the first round
of elections held in March. Of 65 seats up for grabs Ahmadinejad's
opponents won 41 while the president's supporters got only 13.
(AP, 5/4/12)(AP, 5/5/12)
2012 May 4, Israel freed from
jail Haggai Amir, the brother and key accomplice of the man who
assassinated Israeli PM Yitzhak Rabin in 1995, after more that 16
years in jail.
(AFP, 5/4/12)
2012 May 4, In Ivory Coast
about 50 inmates staged a jailbreak from the main prison on the
fringes of Abidjan. About 20 were apprehended.
(AFP, 5/4/12)
2012 May 4, Malaysia’s PM Najib
Razak said a quashed election reform rally was being used to topple
the government ahead of polls expected in June.
(AFP, 5/7/12)
2012 May 4, In Timbuktu, Mali,
the tomb of Sidi Mahmoud Ben Amar (d.1458), classified as a World
Heritage site, was attacked by an Islamist group.
(SFC, 5/7/12,
p.A2)(www.exploretimbuktu.com/culture/culture/saints.html)
2012 May 4, A Myanmar state-run
newspaper said recent battles between government troops and Kachin
ethnic rebels had killed 31 people. The New Light of Myanmar
reported 11 clashes in the last week of April, including what it
said was an attack by rebels of the Kachin Independence Army on a
government border guard base.
(AP, 5/4/12)
2012 May 4, In Nigeria
suspected Boko Haram gunmen killed 2 warders and freed all inmates
from a local jail in Kumshe town, Borno state. 23 Boko Haram
suspects were arrested during an attack on a police station in
Banki. In the eastern state of Taraba, gunmen disguised in military
uniforms shot dead five residents near Babban Mutum town.
(AFP, 5/4/12)
2012 May 4, Shell announced a
significant cut in its Nigerian oil production due to pipeline
damage caused by theft, and warned that it might not meet
contractual obligations as a result.
(AFP, 5/4/12)
2012 May 4, In Pakistan a
teenage suicide bomber targeted police in Khar, Bajaur district,
killing 29 people and wounding dozens.
(AFP, 5/4/12)(AFP, 5/5/12)
2012 May 4, Syrian security
forces killed several demonstrators.
(AFP, 5/5/12)
2012 May 4, Tanzanian President
Jakaya Kikwete sacked six ministers over graft allegations after a
report by the auditor-general implicated numerous officials in cases
of bribery and suspect procurements. Kikwete also transferred an
additional eight ministers to new portfolios and appointed seven new
ones.
(AFP, 5/4/12)
2012 May 4, In Tunisia an
official tally said 338 Tunisians were killed and 2,174 were injured
during the popular uprising that led to the fall of president Zine
El Abidine Ben Ali.
(AFP, 5/4/12)
2012 May 4, Ukraine's jailed
and ailing ex-PM Yulia Tymoshenko tentatively agreed to have her
back condition treated at a local hospital under the supervision of
a German doctor.
(AP, 5/4/12)

2013 May 4, In the SF Bay Area
a stretch limo caught fire on the San Mateo Bridge. The driver and 4
women in a bridal party escaped, but 5 others, including the bride,
died in the fire.
(SFC, 5/6/13, p.A1)
2013 May 4, In Utah soccer
referee Ricardo Portillo (46) died following an April 27 assault by
teen-age player (17). On May 8 the teen was charged with homicide by
assault.
(SFC, 5/9/13, p.A6)(http://tinyurl.com/cqgz2xl)
2013 May 4, In southern
Afghanistan 5 US troops were killed by a roadside bomb in Kandahar
province. 2 others died as a soldier with the Afghan National Army
turned his weapon on coalition troops in the west.
(AP, 5/4/13)(AP, 5/5/13)
2013 May 4, In Afghanistan
insurgents in Baghlan province killed a German special forces
soldier and wounded another. This marked the first death in combat
of a member of Germany's special forces in Afghanistan. Several
insurgents are believed to have been killed in the fighting.
(AP, 5/5/13)
2013 May 4, In northern Belgium
hundreds of people were evacuated after a train carrying chemicals
derailed and caught fire.
(AP, 5/4/13)
2013 May 4, Belgian biochemist
Christian de Duve (95), Nobel Prize winner in physiology or medicine
(1974), died in an act of euthanasia.
(AP, 5/6/13)
2013 May 4, Nigel Evans (55), a
member of PM David Cameron's Conservative party, was detained over
sexual attacks allegedly carried out at his home in Lancashire,
northern England between July 2009 and March of this year. Evans had
announced in 2010 that he was gay.
(AP, 5/5/13)
2013 May 4, Ethiopian
authorities detained reporter Muluken Tesfaw of the private weekly
Ethio-Mehedar as he covered evictions 100 km from the site of the
construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam. The government
has acknowledged the March evictions were illegal and Tesfaw was
later released.
(AP, 5/31/13)(AP, 6/7/13)
2013 May 4, In Pakistan two
blasts in the southern city of Karachi killed three people near the
office of a political party critical of the Taliban.
(AP, 5/5/13)
2013 May 4, In Puerto Rico 4
people were killed and 6 others injured in a drive-by shooting in
Aguas Buenas.
(SSFC, 5/5/13, p.A7)
2013 May 4, Saudi Arabian
officials announced that Saudi girls will be allowed to play sports
in private schools for the first time.
(SSFC, 5/5/13, p.A5)
2013 May 4, Twelve Senegalese
employees of a South African demining company were kidnapped in
Senegal's southern Casamance region. On May 29 the rebels released 3
women who were kidnapped with the group. The 9 remaining employees
were freed on July 12 in Guinea-Bissau.
(AP, 5/6/13)(http://tinyurl.com/dx24cfh)(Reuters,
7/12/13)
2013 May 4, In Sudan 21 people
were killed in Abyei district, including Koul Deng Majok, an ethnic
Ngok Dinka from neighboring South Sudan, two peacekeepers, and 17
members of the Misseriya tribe. Majok's tribe had failed to inform
Misseriya tribesmen they would be visiting the area.
(AP, 5/5/13)
2013 May 4, In Syria Alawite
paramilitaries continued their rampage against Sunnis in al-Bayda
and Banias leaving at least 100 dead.
(Econ, 5/11/13, p.42)

2014 May 4, Chinese Premier Li
Keqiang set off for a four-country tour of Africa (Ethiopia,
Nigeria, Angola and Kenya), acknowledging "growing pains" in
China-Africa relations amid labor conflicts and other problems
stemming from Chinese investment.
(AP, 5/4/14)
2014 May 4, A Chinese vessel
intentionally rammed two Vietnamese Sea Guard vessels in a part of
the disputed South China Sea where Beijing has deployed a giant oil
rig, sending tensions spiraling in the region.
(Reuters, 5/7/14)
2014 May 4, India’s police said
they have killed 3 suspected rebels and arrested eight forest guards
for alleged involvement in the killings of 31 Muslims in
northeastern Assam state.
(AP, 5/4/14)
2014 May 4, In western India a
passenger train derailed, killing at least 18 people and injuring
more than 100 as rescue workers raced to free those still trapped in
Maharashtra state.
(AP, 5/4/14)
2014 May 4, In Iraq shelling in
Fallujah, held by anti-government fighters for over four months,
killed 11 people over the last 24 hours.
(AFP, 5/4/14)
2014 May 4, In Kenya two buses
driving along a busy highway in Nairobi were struck by explosive
devices thrown at them.
(Reuters, 5/4/14)
2014 May 4, Israeli police
looking for evidence linked to a recent attack on a mosque were
mobbed overnight by around 100 demonstrators at the at Yitzhar West
Bank settlement.
(AFP, 5/4/14)
2014 May 4, Libyan businessman
Ahmed Maiteeq (Miitig) was sworn in as the country’s new prime
minister after a chaotic vote in parliament.
(Reuters, 5/4/14)
2014 May 4, Nigerian President
Goodluck Jonathan ordered top security chiefs and officials to
secure the safe release of 223 schoolgirls abducted three weeks ago
by suspected Islamists.
(AFP, 5/4/14)
2014 May 4, In northeastern
Nigeria suspected Boko Haram gunmen kidnapped eight girls from a
village late today near one of their strongholds. After leaving
Warabe the gunmen stormed the Wala village, five km. (three miles)
away, and abducted three more girls.
(Reuters, 5/6/14)(AFP, 5/7/14)
2014 May 4, Panamanians voted
in presidential elections. Conservative Juan Carlos Varela won the
election easily defeating Jose Domingo Arias, Pres. Martinelli's
hand-picked successor 39% to 32%.
(AP, 5/4/14)(AFP, 5/514)(SSFC, 7/6/14, p.A4)
2014 May 4, Saudi Arabia's
health ministry said one more patient who contracted the potentially
fatal Middle East virus related to SARS has died and that 14 new
cases have been detected. The new 14 cases raised the number of
those infected in Saudi Arabia to 411.
(AP, 5/514)
2014 May 4, In Saudi Arabia a
maid (23) from the Philippines was allegedly scalded with water
deliberately poured down her back. An investigation was launched
jointly by Riyadh police and the Philippines embassy after images of
burns allegedly suffered by the woman, who had arrived in the
kingdom in March, surfaced on social media and online.
(Reuters, 5/22/14)
2014 May 4, South Sudanese
government forces overran Nasir, a key rebel base and moved to
recapture Bentiu, the capital of the oil-producing Unity state, from
rebel control.
(AFP, 5/4/14)(AP, 5/514)
2014 May 4, The Britain-based
Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said heavy fighting between
rival Islamic rebel groups in eastern Syria has killed 62 fighters
and forced tens of thousands to flee their homes over the last four
days.
(AP, 5/4/14)
2014 May 4, In Ukraine
pro-Russian militants stormed a police station in Odessa and freed
30 fellow activists as the prime minister blamed police corruption
there for dozens of deaths in rioting on May 2.
(AP, 5/4/14)
2014 May 4, Yemen's military
says it has killed 37 suspected al-Qaida fighters overnight in the
town of Meyfaa in an ongoing offensive in Shabwa southern province.
(AP, 5/4/14)

2015 May 4, The US said it will
give $45 million to UN refugee operations in Kenya to help the
country deal with a growing refugee crisis.
(SFC, 5/5/15, p.A2)
2015 May 4, The US Supreme
Court let stand a lower court's ban on therapy intended to change
the sexual orientation of gay youths under the age of 18.
(AFP, 5/4/15)
2015 May 4, NYPD officer Brian
Moore (25) died, two days after being shot in the head while sitting
in an unmarked car in Queens. Demetrius Blackwell (35) was arrested
and held without bail.
(SFC, 5/5/15, p.A6)
2015 May 4, A report on
drinking water in Bradford County, Pa., revealed traces of a
compound commonly found in Marcellus Shale drilling fluids.
(SFC, 5/5/15, p.A6)
2015 May 4, In Afghanistan a
Taliban suicide bomber struck a bus carrying government workers in
Kabul, killing one person and wounding thirteen.
(SFC, 5/5/15, p.A4)
2015 May 4, Burundi police shot
dead at least 3 demonstrators and wounded dozens of others, in
running battles with protesters angry at a bid by President Pierre
Nkurunziza to extend his rule.
(AFP, 5/4/15)
2015 May 4, An Egyptian court
sentenced to death five men convicted of killing 13 policemen in a
town near Cairo during a deadly security crackdown on ousted
president Mohamed Morsi's supporters on August 14, 2013.
(AFP, 5/4/15)
2015 May 4, The European Union
approved 20 million euros ($22 million) in financial support and
emergency aid to help Nepal deal with the April 25 earthquake.
(AP, 5/4/15)
2015 May 4, In Greece a
nationwide hunt for young Anny, a Bulgarian citizen reported missing
by her mother on April 24, ended today when both her parents were
arrested and her father charged with murder and defiling a body. The
girl was believed to have been killed around April 8-9 and that her
father (27) confessed to disposing of his daughter's remains over
several days.
(AP, 5/5/15)
2015 May 4, In central India at
least 21 people were burned to death when a bus fell into a ditch
and caught fire in Panna district, Madhya Pradesh state.
(AP, 5/4/15)
2015 May 4, Indonesian police
arrested a suspected wildlife smuggler after discovering nearly 22
rare live birds, mostly yellow-crested cockatoos, jammed inside
plastic water bottles in his luggage.
(AFP, 5/6/15)
2015 May 4, Israeli security
guards shot and wounded a Palestinian after he allegedly tried to
stab people waiting at a light railway station in east Jerusalem.
(AFP, 5/4/15)
2015 May 4, Italy's parliament
approved a radical new electoral law designed to end decades of
political instability by ensuring that elections always produce
governments with working majorities.
(AFP, 5/4/15)
2015 May 4, In northwest Kenya
suspected Turkana cattle rustlers ambushed villages and drove away
hundreds of livestock. 54 people lost their lives in the two
communities of Pokot and Turkana. The violence reportedly started
after an attack by Pokot warriors on a Turkana village in which 100
goats were stolen.
(Reuters, 5/5/15)(AFP, 5/6/15)
2015 May 4, In Mexico the body
of radio journalist Armando Saldana Morales (52) was found in
Acatlan de Perez Figueroa, Oaxaca state.
(AP, 5/5/15)(SSFC, 5/21/17, p.E7)
2015 May 4, NATO launched one
of its biggest-ever anti-submarine exercises in the North Sea.
(Reuters, 5/4/15)
2015 May 4, Nepal officials
said the death toll from the April 25 earthquake has reached 7,366
people and wounded nearly 14,500.
(Reuters, 5/4/15)
2015 May 4, Niger said it was
planning a military operation to remove Boko Haram extremists.
Soldiers arrived at the fishing village of Lelewa on Lake Chad and
ordered some 3,000 Nigerian fisherman and refugees to return to
Nigeria. A dozen people were later reported to have died on the
3-day trek.
(SFC, 5/7/15, p.A4)
2015 May 4, A bomb blast
targeted Hamas's security headquarters in Gaza City, after radical
Islamists issued a threatening message calling for the release of
prisoners.
(AFP, 5/4/15)
2015 May 4, In the southern
Philippines gunmen clad in military uniform abducted two Philippine
coast guard personnel and a village chief on Aliguay island then
sped away in two motorboats.
(AP, 5/4/15)
2015 May 4, Polish President
Bronislaw Komorowski approved a resolution that gave his formal
consent to the establishment of a joint Polish-Lithuanian-Ukrainian
military unit. The joint brigade will serve separately from the
three countries’ military commands, but will participate in NATO,
United Nations and European Union operations.
(Reuters, 5/4/15)
2015 May 4, In southern Poland
nine people were arrested following the third night of violence in
Knurow, in southern Poland, triggered by the death of a football fan
hit by a rubber bullet fired by police.
(AP, 5/5/15)
2015 May 4, In Qatar the CEO of
French aerospace firm Dassault, Eric Trappier, signed a
6.3-billion-euro ($7-billion) deal with Qatari defense officials in
Doha. The agreement includes an order for 24 Rafale fighter jets,
with an option on a further 12. French President Francois Hollande
oversaw the signing.
(AFP, 5/4/15)
2015 May 4, Senegal said it
will send 2,100 troops to Saudi Arabia as part of an international
coalition combating Houthi rebels in Yemen.
(Reuters, 5/4/15)
2015 May 4, Somalia's al
Shabaab militants stormed a police station in the country's
semi-autonomous region of Puntland and killed 3 policemen.
(Reuters, 5/5/15)
2015 May 4, In Syria a small
group of insurgents, including a suicide bomber, carried out an
attack in Damascus targeting a Syrian military logistics and supply
facility.
(AP, 5/4/15)
2015 May 4, A series of raids,
codenamed "COBRA III" and organized by Thailand, began across Asia,
Africa and Europe. By May 27 they resulted in more than 300 arrests
and over 600 seizures of assorted wildlife contraband — from several
tons of ivory and rhino horns to whale ribs and sea horses.
(AP, 6/18/15)
2015 May 4, Thailand police
arrested two Padang Besar deputy village chiefs and a member of the
Padang Besar municipal council a day earlier. They faced a variety
of charges related to human trafficking. Police said they also
arrested a Myanmar citizen, Zaw Naing Anu (40), or Anwar, who had
previously been arrested in Thailand for fraud and for kidnapping
Rohingyas.
(AP, 5/4/15)
2015 May 4, Ukraine's army said
two soldiers have died in renewed bouts of fighting in the east,
where skirmishes between government and separatist forces are
increasing and intensifying despite a February peace deal.
(AP, 5/4/15)
2015 May 4, In Yemen heavy
airstrikes hit several airports across the country, as a Saudi-led
military coalition continued to target the country's Shiite rebels
and their allied forces.
(AP, 5/4/15)

2016 May 4, Pres. Obama visited
Flint, Michigan, showing support for the local residents by drinking
filtered city water.
(SFC, 5/5/16, p.A6)
2016 May 4, The US government
said Japanese-based Takata Corp. will recall another 35-40 million
air bag inflators bringing the total recall to as many as 69
million.
(SFC, 5/5/16, p.C1)
2016 May 4, The United States
and its allies conducted 18 strikes against Islamic State in Iraq
and Syria.
(Reuters, 5/5/16)
2016 May 4, US Army Gen. Curtis
M. Scaparrotti (60) took over as the military leader responsible for
the overall direction and conduct of NATO's global military
operations.
(AP, 5/4/16)
2016 May 4, California’s Gov.
Jerry Brown signed anti-tobacco legislation raising the smoking age
from 18 to 21 effective June 9.
(SFC, 5/5/16, p.A1)
2016 May 4, Shares in miner BHP
Billiton tumbled after Brazil's federal prosecutor launched a $43
billion civil suit for a dam break last November that killed 19
people and caused the worst environmental disaster in the country's
history.
(AP, 5/4/16)
2016 May 4, Three Bulgarian
police officers were injured when anti-Roma protesters tried to
break through a cordon during a demonstration in the southern town
of Radnevo. Some 2,000 people took part in the protest over an
incident two days earlier in which four Roma men have been charged
with the attempted murder of three young men.
(Reuters, 5/5/16)
2016 May 4, In western Canada a
wildfire raged out of control destroying much of one neighborhood in
the remote city of Fort McMurray and badly damaging others, with all
80,000 residents ordered to leave in the biggest evacuation in the
area's history.
(Reuters, 5/4/16)
2016 May 4, China’s state media
said China and Laos have agreed to step up security cooperation
after attacks on Chinese nationals in the poor, landlocked Southeast
Asian nation in recent weeks, as Laos' new president visited
Beijing.
(Reuters, 5/4/16)
2016 May 4, Colombian
authorities in Bogota arrested Nidal Waked (46), a prominent Panama
businessman sought by the United States, and dismantled an empire of
businesses that the US says were part of a top worldwide
money-laundering organization for drug traffickers.
(AP, 5/6/16)
2016 May 4, In Dubai a man was
shot seven times in the head in the marina neighborhood of luxury
high-rise buildings and beachfront property. Authorities believed
the man also was allegedly involved in the killing of someone's
daughter in Turkey.
(AP, 5/12/16)
2016 May 4, An Egyptian court
acquitted former PM Ahmed Nazif (2004-2011) of graft charges in the
latest retrial linked to his time serving under longtime autocrat
Hosni Mubarak. The ruling was final and could not be appealed.
(AP, 5/4/16)
2016 May 4, Ethiopian media
reported that a ban on smoking at public gatherings has been
announced by the mayor of Addis Ababa. The new law makes smoking
illegal in bars, cafés, restaurants, schools, hospitals and stadiums
as well as cultural and religious events, but smoking on the streets
is still permitted.
(AFP, 5/4/16)
2016 May 4, The European
Union's top court dealt a blow to the tobacco industry by approving
sweeping new rules that will require plain cigarette packs, ban
menthol cigarettes and regulate the growing electronic cigarette
market.
(AP, 5/4/16)
2016 May 4, Central European
countries dismissed the EU executive's proposals to share out
migrants among member states, saying any plans for forced relocation
of people were unacceptable or, in Hungary's view, amounted to
blackmail.
(Reuters, 5/4/16)
2016 May 4, The European
Commission, the executive arm of the 28-nation EU, gave conditional
backing for Turks to get visa-free travel as part of a deal to solve
the migrant crisis.
(AFP, 5/4/16)
2016 May 4, French riot police
clashed with demonstrators outside a school building in Paris,
prompting government and police calls for an end to weeks of violent
protests mainly linked to plans for a loosening of France's highly
protective labor laws.
(Reuters, 5/4/16)
2016 May 4, Germany’s Health
Ministry said the Cabinet has approved a bill that will allow
patients to get cannabis as a prescription-only medication.
(AP, 5/4/16)
2016 May 4, In Guam Ricky
Sanchez (39), a former Guam Office of Homeland Security employee,
pleaded guilty to charges that he conspired to have a package of
methamphetamine mailed to the office.
(AP, 5/6/16)
2016 May 4, India's highest
court ordered cigarette manufacturers to comply with controversial
new rules requiring bigger health warnings on packets that sparked
weeks-long factory shutdowns.
(AFP, 5/4/16)
2016 May 4, In central India a
passenger bus fell into a dry river bed after crashing through the
railing of a bridge, killing 16 people in Chhattisgarh state.
(AP, 5/5/16)
2016 May 4, It was reported
that sewage has damaged Gaza’s limited fresh water supplies,
decimated fishing zones and is now floating northward and affecting
Israel.
(SFC, 5/4/16, p.A3)
2016 May 4, Jamaica sentenced
Dalton Forrester of Brooklyn to three years in prison and fined him
about $6,000 after authorities found more than $100,000 in
undeclared cash in his luggage on April 9. Forrester pleaded guilty
to charges that included possession of criminal property.
(AP, 5/4/16)
2016 May 4, Malaysia's finance
ministry said it would dissolve the board of advisers at 1Malaysia
Development Berhad (1MDB) and take over its remaining assets, in an
apparent move to scale down a state fund whose scandals have rocked
the government.
(Reuters, 5/4/16)
2016 May 4, In southern Nigeria
militants used explosives to blow up the Okan platform, a collection
facility for offshore oil and gas that feeds the Escravos terminal.
This caused Chevron to lose 35,000 barrels per day (bpd) of net
crude oil production.
(AFP, 5/7/16)
2016 May 4, In Qatar French
Pres. Francois Hollande attended a ceremony to mark the sale of 24
Rafale combat jets plus missiles to the United Arab Emirates.
(Econ, 5/14/16, p.55)
2016 May 4, Russian Defense
Minister Sergei Shoigu said Russia will form three new military
divisions to counter what it believes is the growing strength of The
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) near its borders.
(Reuters, 5/4/16)
2016 May 4, Russia said it has
withdrawn around 30 aircraft from Syria, including all of its Su-25
attack planes stationed in the country.
(Reuters, 5/4/16)
2016 May 4, In Syria at least
22 suspected regime air strikes pounded a key rebel bastion east of
Damascus after a local freeze on fighting expired overnight. Rebel
forces pressed an offensive against regime troops on the western
outskirts of Aleppo.
(AFP, 5/4/16)
2016 May 4, A truce was
announced for Aleppo, Syria, by US officials in agreement with
Russia, in an effort to extend a fragile cease-fire to the deeply
contested city. The Syrian military said the truce would last only
48 hours.
(AP, 5/5/16)
2016 May 4, Turkey said its
warplanes have destroyed targets belonging to the militant Kurdistan
Workers Party (PKK) in southeast Turkey.
(Reuters, 5/4/16)
2016 May 4, Yemen's warring
parties resumed face-to-face peace talks in Kuwait after a three-day
break triggered by a walkout by the government delegation.
(AFP, 5/4/16)

2017 May 4, Pres. Trump marked
the National Day of Prayer by signing an executive order asking the
IRS to use “maximum enforcement discretion" on the Johnson
Amendment, which barred churches and tax-exempt groups from
endorsing political candidates.
(SFC, 5/5/17, p.A6)
2017 May 4, US House
Representatives voted 217-213 to gut the Affordable Care Act. The
legislation moved to the Senate. Pres. Trump told The Economist that
“Obamacare is absolutely dead."
(SFC, 5/5/17, p.A1)(Econ 5/27/17, p.25)
2017 May 4, A US House panel
approved legislation that would gut much of the Dodd-Frank law
enacted after the 2008 economic meltdown.
(SFC, 5/5/17, p.A6)
2017 May 4, US Navy Lt. Cmdr.
Edward Lin agreed to plead guilty to mishandling classified
information, communicating national defense information, failing to
report foreign contacts and lying about his whereabouts while on
leave during his court martial in Norfolk, Va.
(SFC, 5/5/17, p.A6)
2017 May 4, In San Francisco
plans were unveiled for an ever-changing LED light sculpture, by SF
artist Jim Campbell, for the top nine stories of the new Salesforce
Tower.
(SFC, 5/5/17, p.C1)
2017 May 4, In NYC a man
punched and sexually assaulted a German tourist (31) early today as
she walked backed to her Airbnb rental in Harlem.
(SFC, 5/6/17, p.A5)
2017 May 4, William Baumol
(b.1922), one of the great economists of the 20th century, died in
NYC. His more than 500 papers included a description of “cost
disease," on the rising costs associated with service industries.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Baumol)(Econ 5/13/17, p.69)
2017 May 4, In Texas office
workers found nearly 400 migratory birds of brilliant plumage killed
after they smashed into an office tower in Galveston while flying in
a storm. More than 20 species were represented among the 395 birds
that died.
(Reuters, 5/6/17)
2017 May 4, Former Afghan
warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar returned to Kabul on after two decades
in hiding, calling for peace with Taliban insurgents and criticizing
the Western-backed government, which he said was not working.
(Reuters, 5/4/17)
2017 May 4, Albania’s Serious
Crime Court sentenced in absentia Almir Daci, a former Muslim imam,
to 15 years in prison on terrorism charges including recruiting and
sending men to fight with rebel groups in Syria.
(AP, 5/4/17)
2017 May 4, Algerians voted in
parliamentary elections. President Abdelaziz Bouteflika's party and
its coalition ally won a clear majority in parliamentary elections
in a vote marred by low turnout.
(AP, 5/4/17)(AFP, 5/5/17)
2017 May 4, Electoral contests
were held for local councils in Scotland, Wales and many parts of
England, as well as mayoral competitions in several cities. PM
Theresa May's Conservatives scored big gains in the local elections.
(AP, 5/5/17)
2017 May 4, Buckingham Palace
announced that Prince Philip (95), also known as the Duke of
Edinburgh, will retire from public life.
(AP, 5/4/17)
2017 May 4, China said it wants
to be good neighbors with North Korea, after the isolated country's
state news agency published a rare criticism of Chinese state media
commentaries calling for tougher sanctions over the North's nuclear
program.
(Reuters, 5/4/17)
2017 May 4, Finland's
government held its weekly cabinet meeting in front of the glare of
a live audience for the first time, part of celebrations for the
Nordic country's first hundred years of independence.
(Reuters, 5/4/17)
2017 May 4, It was reported
that France has granted political asylum to Russian artist Pyotr
Pavlensky (33), who once memorably nailed his scrotum to Red Square
to denounce state power.
(AFP, 5/4/17)
2017 May 4, The head of
Germany's domestic intelligence agency accused Russian rivals of
gathering large amounts of political data in cyber-attacks and said
it was up to the Kremlin to decide whether it wanted to put it to
use ahead of Germany's September elections.
(Reuters, 5/4/17)
2017 May 4, Thousands of Indian
government forces cordoned off at least two dozen villages in
southern Kashmir while they hunted for separatist militants believed
to be hiding in the area, but called off the operation after about
10 hours without finding any.
(AP, 5/4/17)
2017 May 4, Iran, Russia and
Turkey signed an agreement calling for the setting up of four
"de-escalation zones" in war-torn Syria at the cease-fire talks in
Kazakhstan and said that President Bashar Assad's air force would
halt flights over the designated areas in the country's north,
center and south. Members of the Syrian opposition delegation
shouted in protest and walked out of the conference room in Astana.
The opposition said it could not accept creating safe zones in Syria
because it threatens the country's territorial integrity and said it
would also not recognize Iran as a guarantor of the peace plan.
(AP, 5/4/17)(Reuters, 5/4/17)
2017 May 4, Iraqi forces
rescued 1,000 families as they pushed into Mosul from the north.
(Reuters, 5/5/17)
2017 May 4, Rescuers picked up
560 migrants from unsafe boats off the coast of Libya, including the
body of a Gambian teenager who the migrants said had been shot by
smugglers on the beach for his baseball cap.
(Reuters, 5/5/17)
2017 May 4, The leader of
Mozambique's Renamo opposition party and rebel movement said he was
extending a ceasefire indefinitely, part of an agreement reached in
talks with the government to end violence since a disputed 2014
election.
(Reuters, 5/4/17)
2017 May 4, In the Netherlands
an asylum-seeker (33) from Eritrea was sentenced to 12 years in
prison for raping a 17-year-old woman last September after
attempting to strangle and drown her.
(AP, 5/4/17)
2017 May 4, Pakistani
authorities executed three Pakistani Taliban militants after they
were convicted by military courts over links to acts of terrorism.
(AP, 5/4/17)
2017 May 4, Russia blocked
access to Chinese social media app WeChat, developed by Tencent
Holdings, for failing to give its contact details to Roskomnadzor,
the Russian communications watchdog.
(Reuters, 5/6/17)
2017 May 4, In Somalia US Navy
SEAL Kyle Milliken (38) was killed and two were wounded in a clash
with al Shabaab militants, in what appeared to be the first American
casualties in the country since the 1993 "Black Hawk Down" disaster.
(Reuters, 5/5/17)(Reuters, 5/7/17)(SSFC, 5/7/17,
p.A10)
2017 May 4, South Africa's High
Court ordered President Jacob Zuma to provide reasons for his
decision last month to fire finance minister Pravin Gordhan in a
cabinet reshuffle that led to sovereign debt downgrades.
(Reuters, 5/4/17)
2017 May 4, Thai police said
Vorayuth "Boss" Yoovidhya (32), a fugitive heir to the Red Bull
energy drink fortune, had left Singapore after abandoning his
private jet and disappeared.
(AP, 5/4/17)(AP, 5/5/17)
2017 May 4, The Vatican and
Myanmar announced an agreement to establish diplomatic relations as
Pope Francis met with Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, the
country's top civilian leader.
(AP, 5/4/17)
2017 May 4, Thousands of
southern Yemenis who support the secession of their region rallied
in Aden against the sacking of the city's governor. President Abed
Rabbo Mansour last week fired Aden's governor, Aidarous al-Zubaidi,
along with a Cabinet minister.
(AP, 5/4/17)